The Gentle Art of Flim Flam

By Gregory Clark, February 11, 1922.

The flim-flammer is the hardest kind of crook to catch, for he neither breaks in nor leaves traces. His victim usually sees him but a moment. He operates like the hawk – out of the blue and back again.

A humble little man in his shirt sleeves and bare head came into a Yonge street drug store. In his hand he carried an envelope stamped and addressed, but not sealed.

To the clerk he said:

“Could you give me a ten-dollar bill for ten ones? I want to mall the money in this letter, but the ones are too bulky.”

“Sure,” said the clerk.

The small man removed a bunch of one dollar bills from the letter and handed them to the clerk. The clerk handed him a ten spot.

Then the clerk counted the bills and found only nine.

“Hold on,” he said. “You’re one short here,”

“Oh,” exclaimed the stranger, taking the ones and counting them. “That’s funny. Too bad.”

And he stuffed the one dollar bills back in the envelope in full view of the clerk. Then he said:

“Here, hold this till I run back and get another dollar.”

And handing the clerk the letter, but keeping the clerk’s ten in his hand, the little man in the bare head and shirt sleeves, left the store – never to return.

But it was not just one dollar he got away with. For when the clerk, after ten minutes had elapsed, examined the letter, he found nothing in it but paper. The flim-flammer had switched envelopes. In some neighboring hotel or shop, he had left his hat and coat. This man worked his game on six stores in three Yonge street blocks in twenty minutes.

Another form of flim-flam recently worked successfully on several stores on Roncesvalles and Queen street is the $20 bill stunt. The crook picks a store where there is a girl in charge. He buys some small ten cent article and hands a $20 bill. After he has got his change, he says:

“Oh. never mind that $20! I’ve got the right change. Just give me back my $20”

The girl hands him the $20, he pays down the ten cents, and before the girl grasps the fact that there is $19.90 coming back to her, the crook is out the door and gone.

It is astonishing how this swindle works. There is a confusion in most people’s minds in money-changing that provides the cover for this particular flim-flam.

Foreigners are particular victims of flim-flammers of their own race. An Italian, who was carrying $3,000 trust funds on him, made the acquaintance of an elderly man who had a remarkable lockable purse. The elder man offered to buy his young friend a similar purse for the safe keeping of his $3.000. He did so. And in St. James Park he presented the purse and locked the $3,000 in it for him.

“Now,” said the elder man, “this is my key. I’ve left yours at the hotel. Meet me at the hotel for lunch, and I’ll give you your key.”

The young Italian, his new purse containing the $3,000 safe in his pocket, was on hand for lunch. But his friend failed to turn up. Growing suspicious, he tore open the locked purse and found some clipped newspapers. The crook had switched purses.

Strangely enough, this young Italian, returning heart-broken to Italy, met his crooked friend on board ship and had him arrested in England. But the Canadian government would not go to the trouble of extraditing him.

One of the oddest swindles, not much removed from the flim-flam yet based on a system by which respected citizens of Toronto have made themselves wealthy, was recently pulled off in New York, with a few Toronto people involved.

Two respectable and well-known financial men went up to Petrolea¹, Ont., and bought a tract of land.

Then they went to men with money in New York and put up a novel scheme.

“Give us your money,” they said, “to invest in this oil property. We will dig only one well, and if we don’t strike oil within one year we will give every cent of your money back to you. To safe guard you, we will bank our money in care of a well-known trust company.”

This unusual plan at once attracted money, and the two operators sold in all three million dollars of stock.

This three million they deposited with the trust company.

They then spent ten thousand dollars on sinking a well near Petrolea. And at the end of the year, no oil was struck. So the two financiers returned to New York, drew their three million out of the trust company, and returned every cent to their investors, with the remark that it was a gamble and nothing lost.

But the trust company paid 4 per cent. on that $3,000,000 deposit. which amounted in one year to $120,000!

This the two financiers took for themselves, no mention having been made in the promise to the investors of interest!

A tale is going around about a well-dressed man buying a $500 diamond at a big Toronto Jewelry store, for which he offered his check. The Jewelers asked for references, and the stranger gave the name of the manager of the big hotel at which he was staying. Calling him up, the jewelers were informed that the man was undoubtedly good for the $500.

The stranger then crossed Yonge street to a small jeweler and offered the diamond for $100. This jeweler, sensing something crooked, slipped out his back door on pretence of testing the stone and went across to the big jewelers. When they heard of the offer, they immediately called the police. When the detectives arrested the stranger he protested that the ring was his, and he could do what he pleased with it. But he was taken to headquarters.

Then by telegram the jewelers made enquiry of the stranger’s bank in an American city, and found to their dismay that there was plenty of money to cover the check.

They went up to withdraw their charge and apologize, and the stranger said:

“Gentlemen, this episode will just cost you $1,000.”

The story goes that they paid it.

But the unfortunate part of it is that there appears to be no truth in the story.

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Editor’s Note:

1. Petrolia is a town in Ontario. A little searching around seems to indicate that it was once called Petrolea but the railway companies misspelled it as Petrolia later, and that stuck.. ↩︎