I don't get it - isn't this just really stupid? Like putting a big target on his chest and saying to everyone (criminals as well as law enforcement) "Come and get me"?
It ended up pervading the culture deeply enough, we get elderly people on the news non-chalantly quoting it[1].
I do believe people are dumb enough to believe it, though, and will make purchases from him so they can obtain diamond chains as well.
You guys love that word.
IANAL, but isn't it kind of a weird Catch-22, where if weren't illegal, it could be prosecuted as some sort of fraud?
There is a lot of money to be made for people not afraid to look like an idiot.
> No way someone is this dumb
I met (IRL) a guy who managed to drill a hole in his own stomach while trying to put up a bookshelf[1].
No matter how outlandish and ostentatiously ridiculous something seems to be I _guarantee_ there is someone out there who is dumb enough.
[1] He didn't tell me how he had got the injury himself, his wife and my aunt told me, and they had (respectively) been there when he did it and taken him to hospital.
Each and every time he lost that inheritance - every penny - to the same guy.
After all that, he had eaten 0 bites of humble pie and still acted like the smartest guy in the room. Living in a trailer because he was too dumb to know when people were scamming him.
The scary thing? I have met even dumber people than him (although rarely as annoying).