How Does A Bible-Selling Scam Work?

[Governor Quinn]

I've seen several references to this scam (especially as a scam of the '30's), but I've never seen it fully explained how this scam works. Does anyone know?

[Bricker]

Overpriced Bibles were sold to recent widows / widowers. The con artist gets the name of the deceased and the next of kin from the obituaries, and then uses a cheap gold-embossing machine to personalize a cheap Bible. He then shows up at the home asking for the deceased, expresses surprise when hearing of the death, and reluctantly reveals that some months ago, as a gift, the deceased had ordered a personalized Bible. Priced rather steeply, but when grief is still fresh this is seen as a last wish -- and what kind of grieving spouse could resist this?

[Captain Lance Murdoch]

As seen in the film Paper Moon.

[Governor Quinn]

Ahh, so that's how they made the money! I had remembered the part about selling them to widows, but hadn't understood how one made money off of this, or how it would be a scam. Thank you!

[bouv]

Like most of the things I know, I actually learned about it from The Simpsons, as oppossed to Paper Moon (although The Simpsons did let me know that it was in Paper Moon.)

[5-HT]

Originally posted by rogzilla
As seen in the film Paper Moon.

great movie by the way. not to mention the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the thread title.