We Can Learn a Lot From Con Artists—Just Ask "Scam Goddess" Laci Mosley (2024)

When I listen to Laci Mosley talk about scamming, the actress and comedian behind the award-winning podcast “Scam Goddess” seems like she’s found the cheat code to life. While the average person may never want to be associated with cons, Mosley admits she has been scamming since she was 5-years-old—and revels in it.

Before launching her podcast about infamous scammers in 2019, Mosley was fascinated by the fraud, swindles, and schemes she could get by perpetuating, or she realized had been done onto her. It’s how she describes her path from growing up in rural Texas to starring in shows like iCarly, Lopez vs Lopez, and A Black Lady Sketch Show; her success hasn’t been without exchanging cash for unusable headshots or dealing with her roommates turning into squatters.

In analyzing the mechanisms of scamming over the years, the comedian has become a “true con” expert herself and shared her subversive gospel to the “Scam Goddess” audience—dubbed the “con-gregation”— while telling tales of today’s most infamous fraudsters, from Anna Delvey to Shaun King to George Santos. In the world of “Scam Goddess,” both the scammers and the scammed are treated with empathy and respect as the stories unfold, as the podcast offers a refreshing take on the average true-crime fair. In her theory of connery, she asks a question: What is a scam other than a way to get ahead in a system that wasn’t built for you to succeed? And, by embracing scamming, what if we could “create the life and the existence that we want?”

As the podcast approaches its sixth year, its host is expanding her “Scam Goddess” empire, with a forthcoming TV adaptation on ABC News, and a memoir/essay collection of the same name in which Mosley turns her scam-expert lens on herself. With the book hitting shelves on September 10, Mosley tells Marie Claire that she hopes it’ll spread her con philosophy far and wide. Throughout the book, the stories of her outrageous life are interspersed with calls for readers to cultivate a scammer’s toolkit and come out ahead of the cons that life throws at them. “I've been in some wild situations. I've worked for some drug fronts. I've been in some shootings. Somehow it's all weirdly funny, but acting like I belonged everywhere that I entered was something that gave me a lot of confidence,” she says. “Scammers are always taking up space. So I think we should all be taking up space in whatever way we can.”

Below, Mosley chats with Marie Claire about why we should talk about scams more often, the most altruistic con she’s covered on the podcast, and why she thinks we all have to scam ourselves sometimes.

Marie Claire: For anyone unfamiliar with “Scam Goddess” the podcast, how would you describe your relationship with scams?

Laci Mosley: I would say everything is a scam and everything is made up, so we can make up our own rules. We can create the life that we want, and the existence that we want. I think that there's a lot of beauty in scamming, but at the same time, there's so many people who are talented scammers who I wish would use their powers for good, and not harm people in vulnerable positions. It's kind of love-hate.

MC: It can be hard to think of scams as anything other than a negative connotation. When was the first time you realized a scam could be neutral or even?

LM: I think a scam is comedic when it's goofy, like when people are using costumes. Hilaria Baldwin, there was no reason for her to just be pretending that she had a Latina accent. It's just goofy and it harmed no one. We all had a good time. People were saying that she was culturally-appropriating, but there's a difference between race and nationality.

Recently on the podcast, we profiled the woman behind the rideshare racket, Priscila Barbosa. She was an immigrant and didn't have her papers. She founded a Facebook group with other people who had migrated to the country and were contributing to the economy, and they would use other legitimate people's ride-share information. Not in a nefarious way. It was just so people can make money. She did eventually make a lot of money doing it, but she would always just charge a finder's fee and then let people go off and make their own money. Then she started making up Social Security numbers and that's when she got in trouble-trouble. But during COVID, Uber was all the way through the roof, and her business was actually helping get food to people who were immunocompromised or didn't want to go outside. So even though the government came down on her really hard, I really feel like she helped a lot of people. She put food on a lot of people's tables, literally. So I don't think that's a bad scam.

Also, laws are just made up. Laws were literally like old white dudes got in a room like, 'Let's make laws.' So I don't understand why we take so much credence in certain laws. There are laws that are just, fair, and moral, and there are certainly ones that are corrupt that should be changed.

MC: There can be beauty in scamming, but you're also very clear on the podcast that once the scam crosses a certain line, it's not fun anymore.

LM: No, absolutely not. We all know that that line is when you start punching down on vulnerable people, on people who are in need, and also on people who aren't actively scamming others. That's why I'm like, ‘Scam corporations.’ They're wage-thieving, they're price-gouging. Let's get our lick back. Take a stapler with you home. Grab those paper clips. Take that office toilet paper. It's one-ply; it might rip you up down there, but take something.

MC: Your podcast focuses more on discussing other people’s scam stories than your own. What do you hope readers take from your own stories?

LM: You gotta scam yourself sometimes. Acting like I’ve belonged everywhere that I entered has given me a lot of confidence. I have negative thoughts sometimes about my appearance or my work ethic or my level of success [or] how much care I'm giving to my loved ones because I've sacrificed so much for work. I have so many negative thoughts that creep in—and they're scams, and I have to push them out. I don't think there's such a thing as a confident person. I think every day you have to get up and you have to choose to love yourself.

MC: Why was it important to be so honest in Scam Goddess about the scams you faced in the beginning of your acting career?

LM: I went through every way I got scammed in the entertainment industry, all the way from A, B, C to D, and hopefully that saves a lot of people a lot of time, money, and self-esteem. A lot of people in this industry who are teachers or have established a reputation for being gatekeepers, they'll tell you things about yourself and you'll believe them. I think the best way to be successful in the entertainment industry is to rawly and purely be yourself. There's always something for every type of person, so you don't need to mold yourself into what somebody else is. What's for you is for you.

MC: America has been in a cultural moment for the past few years where scammers can become full-out celebrities. What purpose do you think Scam Goddess serves in the true-crime entertainment landscape?

LM: I think the fascination with true crime has grown because 1. We're all realizing the system is rigged; and 2. People are nosy; [and] 3. People are extremely judgmental when it comes to crime. I like to call what I do "true con," not true crime, because we're not profiling people's deaths or monetizing people's pain. Obviously, there are people who are exploited and victimized, and we don't punch down on them, but no one's dying for the most part on [“Scam Goddess”]. And people want to judge. They want to feel like, 'Oh I would never fall for that scam. I'm smarter than that.'

What I hope is coming across—and I think is really going to come across in the television show—is that anything can happen to you. If you are someone who believes that these things can't happen to you, you're actually more vulnerable, because then when the red flags start coming, you start thinking, 'Oh well, that can't be what I think it is, because that would never happen to me.' But if you believe [anything could happen to me] and you start seeing something weird, you're just like, 'Let me get outta here. I don't want to go through door number three.' I hope that it starts to erase people's judgment. I've had a lot of people reach out to me and say, 'Oh I didn't get scammed because I listened to the podcast.' Or, 'I kept my mom from getting scammed.' That gives me a lot of joy, and I hope that this book Scam Goddess will do the same thing: Give people joy and laughter, but also you can learn a lot and be a voyeur into my life.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.