History Main / MassiveMultiplayerScam

TheCon is telling someone a story --which makes them trust you or makes them panic-- so you can swindle them. A [[TitleDrop Massive Multiplayer Scam]] is when that trope suffers from ComplexityAddiction. In other words, the perpetrator engineers several circumstances and enlists many people (wittingly or otherwise), even the victim's loved ones. The result is that the whole scenario appears to be entirely by chance and causes the intended victim to become increasingly desperate.

Watch out, though, because some victims can and do fight back.

Compare KansasCityShuffle, when the mark figures out an obvious scam only to fall right into a different one. Contrast with FriendlyScheming, which is very similar in methods, but is done by '''true''' friends and loved ones for benign purposes (in the given example: you instead decide to enter the warehouse yourself and are astonished to see a surprise birthday party prepared by your wife and friend). Usually overlaps with AllJustAPrank, though those versions tend to be less harmless.

Not to be confused with [[AllegedlyFreeGame massively-multiplayer online games that are scams]], or people who have been scammed by other players in a massively-multiplayer online game.

[[AC:Beware of unmarked spoilers.]]
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': Urahara comes up with a plan in which three mod-souls kidnap Orihime and force Ichigo and his friends to play several games against them, like running to certain destinations, finding their way through a maze of illusions, picking out the impostor among their classmates, and saving Chad from a giant hourglass, to teach them how to work together and fight the Bounts.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': In a filler arc, Gennou sets paper bombs throughout all of Konoha, supposedly to detonate them to destroy the village, but it is later revealed that many of the original paper bombs were replaced with fakes in order to let Naruto and his friends have a scavenger hunt like the ones his son used to enjoy.
* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'': Genkai arranges for Yusuke to be kidnapped and has Kaito, Yanagisawa, and Kido test the team with their special "territory"-based abilities, in order to prepare them for the fight against Sensui's Seven.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* ''ComicStrip/ModestyBlaise'': "Take Me To Your Leader" revolves around an alien visitation -- complete with a flying saucer, heat rays, MissingTime incidents, and all the trimmings -- witnessed by a disparate group of people under circumstances that make it unlikely any trickery could have fooled all of them. It turns out that it's an elaborate con aimed at one man, a respected scientist with the ear of the British government, and everybody else present for the incident is in on it. After uncovering the truth, Modesty remarks that it's possibly the one explanation even less likely than it actually being aliens.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Un Chinois ne ment jamais'': This FanSequel of ''Literature/JudgeDee'', a young woman and a Taoist priest swindle a rich, old man out of his fortune. Seeing that the man is looking for a [[AfterlifeOfService bride to accompany him in heaven]], they get her to marry the man, with the priest officiating the wedding, and then get her pregnant. This way, she can be spared when the old man kicks the bucket. So, not only does the woman's family has the dowry but she also inherits the man's fortune.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* ''Anime/OnePieceFilmGold'': The Straw Hats fall victim to one when they get lured to come to the VIP area of the casino they're in and tricked into playing a game of Craps against the owner of the boat they are on, Guild Tesoro. After they end up losing (thanks to one of Guild's associates having a Devil Fruit power to steal luck), Guild reveals that everyone in the room, the workers and the guests, work for him and the whole thing was to put the Straw Hats under his debt.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/ThirtySixHours1965'': Just before D-Day in 1944 the Germans try to get an American intelligence officer to reveal the time and location of the landings by setting up an entire fake American military hospital and convincing him that it is 1950 and that he has had amnesia and forgotten the last six years.
%%* ''Film/NineQueens'': The Argentinian original film and its American remake, ''Film/Criminal2004'' have the following: "Get the rare 'Nine Queens' stamp set and collect a lot of money," but the volatile unreliability of Argentinian currency adds another twist.
%%* ''Film/TheBestOffer''
* ''Film/BigFatLiar'': The climax is Jason and Kaley getting every single person that Marty Wolf has pissed off during the film (and that is ''a lot'' of people) together to pull a HumiliationConga scam on Wolf that will end with him giving an EngineeredPublicConfession.
* ''Film/Bombshell1933'': An unethical studio publicity man hires a whole family of actors to perform in character in order to create a fake romance for Lola Burns, an actress who has quit Hollywood. The idea is to get her to go back to work after the fake romance ends. The LoonyFan who keeps following Lola around is also a performer hired by the publicity guy.
* ''Film/BirthdayGirl'': The second act twist is that the Russian bride and her kidnappers are working together to scam her husband, and do it all the time.
%%* ''Film/{{Confidence}}'' (spiritual remake of ''The Sting'')
* ''Film/Criminal2004'': This English-language remake of ''Film/NineQueens'' is about a veteran conman named Richard who takes on a younger partner named Rodrigo and convinces him to assist him in pulling a major con on a mark who's staying in the hotel where Richard's sister works as a concierge. TheReveal at the end is that the whole plan is really a con engineered by Rodrigo against Richard, which both the mark and the sister (whom Rodrigo is dating) are in on. The goal: to coerce Richard into giving his sister and brother the inheritance he cheated them out of. The kicker: Richard never finds out what's really going on.
* ''Film/TheCoverGirlMurders'': On a remote island, Rex (Lee Majors) a ruthless and greedy magazine owner fighting a hostile takeover, gets his models together for a big issue. One by one, they're killed off as suspicions grow huge. Attacked by one model accusing him of being the killer, Rex shoots her in self-defense and his long-time aide says he'll keep it quiet in exchange for Rex signing over half the company to him. Rex does so: at which point, all the "murdered victims" walk in with smiles, revealing they're the new board of directors for the company and this whole thing has been one massive scam to get back at Rex for his behavior and also save the magazine from his mismanagement. They leave the island with Rex just sitting stunned at how this could happen.
* ''Film/{{Derailed}}'': Married man Charles (Creator/CliveOwen) meets with Lucinda (Creator/JenniferAniston) and is soon intrigued by her and her tales of her late daughter. They share a hotel room only for a man to burst in, beat Charles down, and rape Lucinda in front of him. The man then calls Charles and demands a huge payoff or he'll reveal the affair to his family (the same reason why Charles can't report Lucinda's rape to the police). Charles gets his friend Winston to try and scare the blackmailer off only for Winston to be shot dead and holds Lucinda hostage to get Charles to pay up. Charles does and tries to move on with his life, going to see Lucinda one last time at her office and meeting a completely different woman who identifies "Lucinda" as her temp, Jane. [[spoiler:Charles realizes this whole thing was a massive scam and finds Jane already pulling another mark into a romance where the "attacker" (her real husband) is ready, pushing Charles to pull his own scam in retaliation.]]
* ''Film/DirtyRottenScoundrels'': Two men trying to scam a girl by way of pretending they are competing with each other to see who gets all the money and then it turns out that the girl is ''an even better'' scammer, using them both as pawns to get money herself.
* ''Film/{{Duplex}}'': The endless misery Mrs. Connelly has driven the couple through is a [[TheCon real estate scam]], and her son Kenneth (the man who sold the titular duplex to the couple) and RabidCop Officer Dan (who turns out to be not only a DirtyCop, but ''Kenneth's gay lover'') are in on it.
* ''Film/HouseOfTheLongShadows'': An unsuspecting author is set up to experience a GothicHorror-flavored suspense story by his publisher, who hires actors to pose as a Family With A DarkSecret, gathering to resolve a long-ago injustice. At least, that's what the novel the author writes in 24 hours is about.
* ''Film/{{Inception}}'': The twist is that the whole plot happens inside a dream world, and multiple times, at that, in order to become more convincing.
* ''Film/KillerKlownsFromOuterSpace'': One of the local policemen, Mooney, thinks that he's being the target of one of these (that somehow involves ''all of the town's residents'') to drive him nuts and force him to quit being a policeman. And because of this, [[PoliceAreUseless he absolutely refuses to believe that alien Klowns are abducting and killing people]], even when his superior officer calls through the radio asking for him to request backup (he just assumes he's in on it, too). Goes without saying that the threat is real and it ends up killing him.
* ''Film/LarsAndTheRealGirl'': After Lars convinces himself that a sex doll is a real girl, his brother, and sister-in-law take him to a therapist. The therapist tells them that revealing the truth would only damage his psyche further, so ''the entire town'' chips in to help keep the illusion going, going so far as to give the sex doll a job.
* ''Film/{{Love Crime|2013}}'': Chulun gets an experimental EasyAmnesia memory wipe drug from his doctor friend Bayar. He uses that drug to wipe the memories of a woman he likes named Uranbileg, only to tell her after she wakes up that they've been dating for a year and they actually live together. He uses another dose to wipe the memories of her real boyfriend, Tugsu, so Tugsu will forget Uranbileg. Everything goes swimmingly until the bartender at the restaurant where Chulun met Uranbileg shows up. He reveals that he knows Uranbileg and Tugsu used to date and that Chulun wiped their memories, and tells Chulun that he has to leave the country immediately in order to avoid arrest. Right after this happens, TheReveal is that the supposed EasyAmnesia drug is fake and that the other four characters--Bayar, Uranbileg, Tugsu, and the bartender--were all faking everything, and conspiring together to trick Chulun into using the bogus drug, so they could blackmail him out of a lot of money.
* Creator/DavidMamet:
** ''Film/{{House of Games}}'' features a psychiatrist getting involved in a world of con men who sometimes perform cons that include many participants. It turns out that her entire experience with the con men has been a giant con on her.
** ''Film/StateAndMain'': The end reveals that the first trial was actually a fake put on to allow the main character to perjure himself and regret it, allowing him to tell the truth when the real trial starts.
** ''Film/TheSpanishPrisoner'': Everything that's gone on has been a giant con to steal a multimillion-dollar process and pin the theft on the protagonist.
* ''Film/ManOnFire'': {{Subverted}}. Pita's Dad stages the kidnapping to extract the kidnap money from the insurance company to make up for his own father's massive debts. The kicker is that his lawyer, the cops, and the racketeers are all either in cahoots with or backstabbing each other for the money (the man was convinced that Pita would be kept safe--only him (and, ironically, The Voice (but only out of professionalism)) actually give a shit about her welfare or survival). When it all goes wrong, the bodyguard deals with the scam by killing basically everyone.
* ''Film/MatchstickMen'': The movie is just on a smaller scale than the book because the mark has less money to take. The whole plot of the film is just everybody that Roy thinks is his ally (including Angela, Roy's estranged daughter (who turns out is just acting)) pulling a con to take all of Roy's money and run (and in the final scenes, Angela tells Roy that Frank backstabbed everybody else and stole the money).
* ''Film/OceansEleven'': In the remake, the crew accomplishes their heist by intercepting the 911 call and posing as the SWAT team sent to break up their very own robbery.
* ''Film/{{Ocho apellidos catalanes}}'': Pau's grandmother, Roser, is a fervent Catalan nationalist who wants to see her region secede from Spain, so he decides to pretend it has actually happened. Since she has been an important woman in the town, Pau doesn't have much trouble getting everybody to play along. Koldo inadvertently blows the ruse during the wedding sequence.
%%* ''Film/RuthlessPeople'' ends up as this.
* ''Film/Shade2003'':
** Small-time hustler Larry hooks up with crew Tiffany, Charlie, and Vernon. The plan is to have Larry win big on Vernon's crooked deals so no one will suspect Larry of cheating. Larry gets impatient and on his own crooked deal gets $100,000 in the pot, including money that belongs to Larry's mobster boss, and loses. The whole thing turns out to be a scam by the entire game to take Larry's boss's money.
** In the film's climactic final game, Vernon is going up against legendary underground player The Dean, who he discovers is using a marked deck. On the final hand he deals the Dean Kings and Queens with one Queen in the hole and himself two Jacks with a seven in the hole. With $2,000,000 in the pot at showdown, Vernon switches his hole seven for a Jack for three-of-a-kind. However, the Dean has switched out his whole King for a Queen to make a higher three-of-a-kind. The next day the Dean and Vernon meet up to split the cash. The whole thing was a scheme between them to rip off Charlie and Tiffany.
* ''Film/TheSting'': The plan to steal a lot of money from TheDon through a false fixed wire scam.
* ''Film/TrueLies'': When Harry suspects his wife Helen is having an affair, he throws the resources of Omega Sector into first scamming the would-be adulterer, then into giving Helen an exciting fantasy life.
* ''Film/TheTrumanShow'': Everyone but Truman knows that his entire town, which he has never left since birth, is really an elaborate film set populated by actors. His parents, his teachers, his best friend, his ''wife'': all actors in a reality TV show.
* ''Film/WildThings'': Layers upon layers of deceit, many people trying to back-stab each other. It is not until the denouement that it turns out that most of them were actually working together and just ''pretending'' to backstab each other (not to say that one or two of them didn't end up dead, though).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/AmericanGods'': The plot is revealed to be a scam run primarily by Odin and Loki, aka "Mr. Wednesday" and "Mr. World", which involves starting a war between all of the Old Gods and the New Gods.
%%* The novel ''Film/MatchstickMen''
* ''Literature/TheMugAndSpoon'': An entire town is involved in a con that had been going on for at least fifteen years. A local girl is groomed to pose as a princess. The townspeople spread a rumour about a princess who was put under a sleeping spell and found by the town’s innkeepers. A would-be rescuer arrives to try TrueLovesKiss. As he dines at the inn, the innkeepers ask him about his financial situation and the girl eavesdrops from the next room. After he finishes dinner, she lies down in a gilded coffin and pretends to be asleep. If she thinks him good enough, she "wakes up" after his kiss, and if not, she waits for a richer guy. When she "wakes up", marries, and leaves, another girl steps in to take her place. Repeat on infinite.
* ''Literature/MurderOnTheOrientExpress'': EverybodyDidIt and everybody tried to conceal the murder. Except for Countess Andreyi. And Poirot, of course. Part of the reason he decides to let everybody go is that not only was the murder victim a grade-A AssholeVictim, but also because there is absolutely no way to beat the odds if the murderers decide silencing Poirot is the best way to go.
* ''Literature/TheOregonFiles'': In ''The Golden Buddha'', in order to [[MakesSenseInContext free Tibet]], The Corporation is hired to steal the eponymous Golden Buddha from an entrepreneur with [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Triad]] connections during a party. They end up impersonating everyone from the band to security guards to a mercy flight helicopter pilot. The only ones who aren't involved in the con are the police and most of the guests.
* Creator/JamesThurber: His fairy tale "The Great Quillow" involves some townspeople who pull one of these on a giant to get him to leave their village alone.
* ''Literature/YumiAndTheNightmarePainter'': Discussed when evidence begins to stack up that Painter and Yumi are actually on the same planet--in fact, when they look at their maps, they appear to be ''nearby''. Perhaps they're hidden from each other somehow. Painter's world is endlessly shrouded in darkness and they almost never leave their cities, so that wouldn't be very hard. However, Yumi's world is lit by the sun--if they were as close as their maps claimed, she should be able to ''see'' his city. Painter theorizes that the landscape she sees is an illusion cast by the magical shroud; Yumi counters that this would be impossible for anyone to maintain for any length of time, even if the entire government was in on it. Sure, her people don't leave their towns much, but some do, and they know what lies outside their villages. Painter accepts the logic; his next thought is that it's an overlapping alternate dimension. [[spoiler:Turns out he was right the first time, but didn't go far enough: ''Everyone'' is in on the scam, because everyone besides the yoki-hijo are nightmares enslaved by the machine, acting out a GroundhogDayLoop to keep these fourteen girls trapped]].

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/TheAdventuresOfPeteAndPete'': [[Recap/PeteAndPeteS3E7LastLaugh "Last Laugh"]] involves a massive prank wherein everyone, including the bullies, were in on a prank to destroy the dreaded dental hygiene skit the principal loved so much.
* ''Series/BurnNotice'': This trope is used as the plot of multiple episodes. Because of Michael Westen's dislike to assassinate people, he makes use of scams to make them face AFateWorseThanDeath. He's a bit of a hypocrite because if his marks get killed by other bad guys, that's fine. Sometimes, the VictimOfTheWeek having been the target of one of these by the VillainOfTheWeek is the reason they come asking Michael for help.
* ''Series/CharliesAngels'': In one episode, the girls get a compulsive gambler thief to lose his ill-gotten gains in order to force him to steal again at a time and place of the heroes' choosing, so the police would have the evidence to arrest him. Another involved conning a conman in order to recoup his victims' money.
* ''Series/{{Cheers}}'': Gary manages to get the whole city of Boston to trick Sam into thinking he was dead.
* ''Series/{{CSI}}'': Two episodes feature criminals pulling this on the cops with variable success.
** [[Recap/CSIS2E14TheFinger "The Finger"]]: A man murders his mistress, then sets up a fake kidnapping to make it look like someone else did it.
** [[Recap/CSIS4E13Suckers "Suckers"]]: A casino security chief arranges a fake murder...which is a cover for the theft of a priceless antique... which is a cover for a heist from the casino's vault which is the cover for a massive insurance scam. While the mastermind doesn't get arrested, Grissom does give all his evidence (circumstantial at best) to the insurance company. Presumably, they require less proof to deny a claim.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E2CityOfDeath "City of Death"]] takes this to [[RefugeInAudacity ludicrous levels]]. The con: Count Scarlioni plans to steal ''Art/TheMonaLisa'' from the Louvre. He's set up a silent auction among a group of unscrupulous art collectors who think they're about to get the most valuable painting in the world, and they mail in their checks. Here's how it would normally work: The thief would steal the ''Mona Lisa'', only for the Count to refuse it. The Count gets the money, the thief goes to prison, and the art collectors eat humble pie--they can't raise a fuss at the risk of incriminating themselves. Here's how it works on ''Doctor Who'': the six art collectors ''get'' their ''Mona Lisas'', each of which is a ''legitimate'' copy that was painted by [=daVinci=] himself. The Count is really an alien splintered through time, and he's been working a long con throughout human history so that he can eventually save his own species at the cost of preventing humanity from ever existing. The good Doctor saves the day by aiming to visit [=daVinci=], missing intentionally, and writing "THIS IS A FAKE" in permanent marker on the canvases reserved for the commissioned ''Mona Lisa'' replicas.
* ''Series/EarthFinalConflict'': In [[Recap/EarthFinalConflictS5E4Subterra "Subterra"]], Renee races to save Melissa before she's transformed into a hybrid. He fights agents along the way and Melissa apologizes for not believing her. The ending reveals that Melissa is already turned and the whole thing was a show --no doubt thought up by Sandavol-- to trick Renee into giving up what evidence she had on the Atavus.
* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': In [[Recap/TheGoodPlaceS1E13MichaelsGambit "Michael's Gambit"]], it's revealed that the characters are in the Bad Place. Almost all the residents are demons whose goal is to psychologically torture the only four real humans. Arguably also applies to season four, only now it's the main characters running a fake "Good Place" as a social experiment to prove that people can improve themselves.
* ''Series/{{Hustle}}'':
** The protagonists are {{Con Artist}}s who PayEvilUntoEvil by doing long cons to people who deserve it, so this trope is the usual plot of the week.
** [[Recap/HustleS3E4ABollywoodDream "A Bollywood Dream"]]: {{Subverted}} because Kulvinder, the mark, reforms [[AmnesiacDissonance due to amnesia]] and the team brings the whole thing to a halt rather than scam an honest man.
** [[Recap/HustleS4E5ConningTheArtists "Conning the Artists"]]: {{Exaggerated}} as the Japanese restaurant owner they are trying to scam figures out what's going on and plays them right back for her own ends.
* ''Series/HomeImprovement'':
** [[Recap/HomeImprovementS3E06CrazyForYou "Crazy For You"]]: Jill concocts a scheme where a supposedly obsessive fan stalks Tim. Everyone joins in on it to make Tim paranoid until the reveal at a big party.
** [[Recap/HomeImprovementS8E06Bewitched "Bewitched"]]: Wilson pulls one by apparently dying during one of Tim's little pranks and police being brought in to investigate. Naturally, they're all just friends of Wilson helping with the ruse, and again Jill, their family, and Al are in on it.
* ''Series/{{Leverage}}'': The series is entirely about the heroes doing this to untouchable businessmen who've victimized the client of the week. It's also pretty common for them to turn it around, setting things up so that the one person who the target assumes is scamming them is legit --and therefore pissed when the target tries to get them arrested. They don't charge their clients a dime since walking away with a good chunk of the target's money is how they get paid. In fact, their clients usually walk away with at least a few million in cash afterwards.
-->"[[UnusualEuphemism We work on an alternative revenue stream.]]"
* ''Series/{{MASH}}'': B.J. bets Hawkeye that he is the greatest prankster in the 4077th's history. To prove it, he will prank every member of the main cast in the next 24 hours...with Hawkeye last. Over the next day, B.J. fells every single one of the other characters, while Hawkeye grows progressively more and more paranoid and resorts to ever more bizarre measures to avoid being pranked. The next morning, Hawkeye triumphantly announces that he has emerged unscathed. It is then that the others reveal that all of the pranks on them were phonies. The whole thing was a set-up to [[ParanoiaGambit drive Hawkeye nuts]] all along.
* ''Series/MissionImpossible'': It's basically ''Massive Multiplayer Scam: The Series''. In "Encore" they make their target think he's back in 1937 on the day he carried out a hit.
* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'': In [[Recap/MurdochMysteriesS7E13TheMurdochSting "The Murdoch Sting"]], Murdoch and company pull one of these to get the culprit Eva Pearce to incriminate herself in a murder, and it really is a case of all hands on deck. Brackenreid solicits the help of one Cassie Chadwick, who claims the culprit has impersonated her to get engaged to the murder victim. Constable Higgins impersonates an attorney, Dr. Grace portrays the murder victim's floozy girlfriend, and she even drags in Leslie Garland at one point when his unexpected entrance threatens to blow the whole set-up.
* ''Series/PeakyBlinders'': In the GrandFinale, Tommy is informed by his longtime doctor Holford that he has a [[TerminallyIllCriminal brain tumor]] and only a year to live. After a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the family enemies, Tommy clears up his affairs and heads to a cabin to kill himself. But a vision of his late daughter and a glimpse at a newspaper have Tommy confronting Holford on how not only was he best friends with Tommy's enemy Oswald but the doctor who gave the second opinion "confirming" Tomy's tumor was the maid of honor at Oswald's wedding. Tommy realizes he's perfectly fine and this whole thing was cooked up to trick him into killing himself and is ready to fight back.
* ''Series/TheRockfordFiles'': In the two-part episode [[Recap/TheRockfordFilesS5E19NeverSendABoyKingToDoAMansJob "Never Send a Boy King to do a Man's Job"]], there's an entire fake company, a large number of Egyptian-themed movie props, a faked auction of archeological finds, real race cars, the legendary curse of King Tut, and five faked deaths involved.
* ''Series/TalesFromTheCrypt'': A man gets his wife and brother, a coroner, to help him fake his own death to collect the $500,000 insurance money. After going to South America with a small part of the money, he keeps waiting for them to join him with the rest. Eventually, what money he has runs out and he returns to find his "widow" and brother are now married and living off the rest of the money. When he tries to turn them in to the police for insurance fraud, ''he'' gets arrested, convicted, and ''sentenced to death'' for his own murder.
* ''Series/TheUnusuals'': The cops fall victim to two of these in a row, a fake kidnapping in "The Tape Delay" and a robbery in "The Dentist."
* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': In [[Recap/VeronicaMarsS02E12WallaceAndRashardGoToWhiteCastle "Wallace and Rashard Go to White Castle"]], Veronica masterminds a scam like this on a basketball manager who's trying to frame Wallace for a hit-and-run, pulled by Wallace, Jackie, and a cop Veronica knows who moonlights as a security guard.
* ''Series/WillAndGrace'': Grace cheats at cards but it's Will whom their friends accuse of cheating. This leads to an intense confrontation. A teary-eyed Grace confesses, only to find out that the whole fight was staged.
-->'''Will:''' [[DoubleEntendre Come on, Grace, everyone knows that four Queens beats a Straight]].
* ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'': The heroes set up one of these to recover some nude pictures of Jennifer taken without her consent, and another to trick a visiting auditor into giving a blatantly inaccurate report on the station to Mama Carlson.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* Music/BackstreetBoys: In the music video of "The Call", a cheating man goes to a party, meets a gorgeous lady, and goes with her instead of returning home with his girlfriend. Once in the taxi and about to kiss, she gets off the car and runs. He pursues her but is shot, so he seeks refuge at his friend's place. As they are fleeing, the friend reveals himself as the lady from before disguised. She runs and the chase is on again. She leads him first to a room graffitied with the insults like "cheat", "fraud", and "scumbag"; and then to an alley where the lady, the girlfriend, the hotel's staff, and the party people are waiting for him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* Wrestling/CurtHennig:
** Mr. Perfect's eponymous "Perfect Hoax" back in 1996. For weeks, he stole Wrestling/TripleH's valets and caused him to lose numerous matches because of the subsequent distractions. Finally getting fed up with it, Triple H challenged the retired Hennig to a match; Hennig accepted. However, on the night of the match during an episode of RAW, Triple H ambushed Hennig backstage before the match and seemingly injured his knee, preventing him from continuing. Then-Intercontinental Champion "Wild Man" Marc Mero decided to fight Triple H in Hennig's place, putting his title on the line. In the match's climax, Triple H attempted to cheat using a steel chair, but Hennig ran in for the save and took the chair from Triple H... only to wallop Mero with the chair, allowing Triple H to pin him for the title. Afterwards, the duo revealed that the entire debacle was a plan to put the title on Triple H (and return him to a prominent stature within the company), while embarrassing Mero for stealing Sable from Triple H.
** Mr. Perfect was a point man for another one just four years prior. He and Wrestling/RicFlair orchestrated a plot to get the WWF Title back to Flair starting at Summerslam 92. Wrestling/RandySavage and the Wrestling/UltimateWarrior were both fan favorites, but also accused of selling out to Team Flair. Both Flair and Perfect liberally attacked both the challenger (Warrior) and the WWF Champion (Savage) during the match. Warrior won when Team Flair jumped the champion on the outside, but only by countout, meaning Savage was still the champion. Flair beat the Macho Man shortly after this to win the WWF title for the second time.
* Wrestling/{{Sting}}:
** This happens [[GoodIsDumb a lot]] to him in his Wrestling/{{WCW}} run, often at the hands of Wrestling/RicFlair and Wrestling/TheFourHorsemen or Wrestling/LexLuger. Perhaps the most famous example occurred in an angle involving our hero and Flair in 1995. Flair lost a match to Wrestling/ArnAnderson at Fall Brawl due to interference from Wrestling/BrianPillman, and spent the next month trying to convince an extremely wary Sting to be his partner against the duo for Halloween Havoc. After weeks of vehement refusal, Flair finally got Sting to relent, but not before the latter threatened to mess up the former real good if he got screwed. Before the match, Anderson and Pillman ambushed and seemingly injured Flair, forcing Sting to face the heels by himself. However, in the middle of the match, as Sting was getting his ass kicked, Flair appeared to the roar of the crowd and took his place at Sting's corner. Sting played RickyMorton for a long time, getting closer and closer to making the tag to Flair each time. When he finally made the tag, the arena went nuts, and Flair looked prepared to ''kill'' Arn and Pillman...and then [[FaceHeelTurn proceeded to immediately lay out Sting]], revealing that the entire incident was a setup to re-form The Four Horsemen and humiliate Sting.
** It got so bad that in one match it was lampshaded when Sting gave Flair's valet Elizabeth a can of mace to use in case any of the heels tried to make a move on her. Predictably, she turned around and used the mace on Sting later in the match--only it wasn't mace, it was ''silly string''! This was the only time Sting ever managed to outsmart someone.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'':
** Case 4 of ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney Trials and Tribulations]]'' is about how a cop's sister is kidnapped by her boyfriend, asking for a ransom of an expensive diamond of their father's at a mountain river. It was all staged in order to sell the diamond and split the millions of dollars amongst themselves. However, all of THAT was a scam; the sister planned this all along and jumped into a river with the diamond, keeping it for herself. (Until it was lost in the river, leaving her with nothing but a criminal background and a lot of karma to hit her over the head later.)
** In case 2 of ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice Spirit of Justice]]'', Roger Retinz plots to pull a hidden camera "prank" on Trucy's first televised appearance with Mr. Reus and Bonny and Betty de Famme by tricking Trucy into thinking she had accidentally killed Reus. Like the previous example, it turns out to be an elaborate scheme by Roger to kill Mr. Reus and pin the blame on Trucy that none of the other characters are aware of. He gets bonus points for managing to convince Betty that the "prank" was all ''her'' idea.
* ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt'': In the "Blood and Wine" expansion, the killer of the knights turns out to be a Higher Vampire acting under the understanding that someone had his former lover and was going to torture her to death, the blackmailer in question being an exiled noble with a grudge. Of course, the blackmailer and his lover turn out to be one and the same.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/CharlieTheUnicorn'': The other unicorns take Charlie on a huge adventure to Candy Mountain. Only to knock him out and take his kidney. The second one takes him on another huge adventure to return the Magical Amulet to the Banana King and they rob him. The third one (Yeah, he's that smart) takes them under the deep blue sea to help them with a snowman and they take his horn. [[BrickJoke But they did give back his kidney]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': {{Parodied}}. When Bullock is finally enough of an ass that Stan assaults him and comes within a hair's breadth of shooting him, Bullock weasels out of it by claiming everything that happened in the episode was a SecretTestOfCharacter, with all the other characters helping him pull off an elaborate charade to see if Stan would be able to stand up for himself. He's ''clearly'' [[BlatantLies pulling this out of his ass]], but if it doesn't convince Stan, it at least befuddles him long enough for Bullock to make his exit.
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'': In a somewhat {{troperrific}} episode, a surgeon specializing in cybernetic prosthetic limbs is coerced into providing some punks with weaponized cybernetic enhancements because they've kidnapped his girlfriend. Of course, the girlfriend was working with the gang all along, and the whole thing was probably her idea. The doctor eventually finds out, but the gang's leader doesn't realize he knows and comes to the doctor for repairs one last time.
--> [[FadeToBlack "I understand... no holding back."]]
%%* ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'': "I Only Have Surprise For You?"
* ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlackTheSeries'': In [[Recap/MenInBlackTheSeriesS3E9TheOutToPastureSyndrome "The Out To Pasture Syndrome"]], Zed retires from the MIB and is neuralyzed. Alpha decides to take advantage of this to exact revenge on Zed. Scanning Jay's memories reveals that Zed is in Antarctica. Zed hasn't actually retired, though, the MIB just wants to lure Alpha into a location where they can monitor him.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS6E16TwentyEightPranksLater "28 Pranks Later"]], Pinkie Pie gets the whole town to help her pull a huge prank on Rainbow Dash by making her believe that they all became zombies from the joke cookies she gave out.
* ''WesternAnimation/SallyBollywood'': In "Fangs A Lot", one of the students, Lee, gets fed up with the pranks of a local bully named Bob. So he stages an elaborate one with other students to make Bob think that Lee's a vampire and is turning the others. Sally and Doowee are brought in to investigate at Bob's behest, Sally eventually finds out herself what Lee is doing and joins in by making it seem Lee had gotten to her sometime before a rendezvous with Doowee and Bob. Doowee catches on to what's happening and instantly helps as well by acting along to Sally "feeding" on him and "turning" into a vampire himself.
* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'': In [[Recap/ScoobyDooMysteryIncS2E13WrathOfTheKrampus "Wrath of the Krampus"]], Mystery Inc., with a little help from several others, including Hot Dog Water, Jason Wyatt, and former mayor Fred Jones Sr, created the hoax of the Krampus to distract Mr. E and his allies so they could acquire Mr. E's segments of the Planispheric Disc.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** Bart and Homer decide to work as con artists. Grandpa Simpson pretends to help them but secretly lures them into a trap where they were arrested by a government agent who robs them. As it turns out, he's a con artist. Bart and Homer make up a story to explain the robbery, which inadvertently leads to Willie being arrested, put on trial, found guilty, and given a long prison sentence. Out of desperation, Willie steals a bailiff's gun and starts shooting. When Skinner is apparently killed --actually, a ruse with blanks, squibs, and a blood pack--, Homer finally confesses, only for everyone else to admit their deception, down to the judge revealing himself to be Grandpa in a mask and wig. The whole town was working together to teach them a lesson.
--->'''Homer''': I can't believe everyone was in on it!\\
'''Willie''': Willie [[UnwittingPawn wasn't]]!!
** Homer and Marge are framed for murder as contestants of a RealityShow. Even the police are deceived.
** Parodying the final scene of ''Film/StateAndMain'', a fake trial is put on to allow Homer the opportunity to realize that he'd regret it if he lies during the real trial. When Homer expresses his incredulity, Lisa agrees that the massive con was [[LampshadeHanging pretty implausible]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* 419Eater
** It's a website that deals exclusively with getting back at those infamous Nigerian scammers that we've all gotten emails from. It leads the scammers into thinking that they will be getting the money they asked for, often leading to ridiculous situations. They sometimes con the scammers into posing for pictures to ensure that the money will be sent; these photos are then used for banners on the website and posted in galleries. Sometimes they even manage to get money from the scammers themselves, which is then donated to charity. These scams frequently end with the [[http://www.419eater.com/images/audio/martins_jide/martins_jide_191004b.mp3 untimely 'death' of the would-be 'sucker']].
** The pictures are often humiliating, degrading, and frankly ridiculous. One particularly extreme example is a naked man standing on two chairs, with a laptop suspended from his sensitive bits while holding two torches and a sign (taped to his chest) proclaiming how serious he is.
** Another 419Eater staple is the "safari", in which the would-be scammer is convinced that due to a mix-up at the Western Union [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle Your Money Is In Another City.]] Cue a wild goose chase of hundreds of miles.
* Equally amusing would be the [[http://www.rymus.utvinternet.com/p-p-p-powerbook/powerbook.pdf P-P-P-Powerbook prank]], which involved an eBay scammer being shipped a binder covered in glued-on keyboard keys, and paying about 600 dollars for it to boot.
[[/folder]]
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