Recently, there has been an influx of scam auction signs popping up around the city. This is an old scheme that has been carried out for decades – yet still remains popular within a modern context. Here, the sign reads, “U.S. Asset Forfeitures – Public Auction” while listing goods such as Rolex’s, fine jewelry, and even art prints from Picasso, Andy Warhol, Dali, and others.

If you think about this for a few seconds, you should realize that the chances of someone’s assets getting forfeited containing works by Picasso, Warhol, and Dali remain incredibly slim, to the point of near impossibility. Nonetheless, as mentioned – these scams are still successful and bring in profit every single year. So, how do they work exactly?

In short, they work like many other scams – and rely on authority. Here, the goods that are sold are often counterfeit. So, a $20,000 Rolex that is sold for $5,000 turns out to be a fake worth $500. Similarly, the same thing goes on with antiques, jewelry, and art pieces.

In more sophisticated versions of this scam, they will even start at high prices to show a higher value of the items on sale, adding status to what is on offer. Sometimes, they will even get fake ‘bidders’ to show interest and pump up prices by performing shill bids.

Most of the time, the general public are more than aware of how these things work. Still, it only takes one fool to spend thousands and lose a lot of money at once. In other words, if you happen to see any of these around San Jose then feel free to remove them as you’ll be doing the public justice in the process.