One day a man, dressed like a homeless, came at my door, presenting himself as professor in medieval archeology.
"Your garden is on an ancient Templar abbey, with part of a treasure of total 1MnEur of gold spread on the 3 neighboring houses including yours...
I propose you an agreement , you fund my tools and I give you all the gold on your land"
I am managing a small business of 20000$, and have saved few hundreds...
I like lottery, history, and money and why not believe this strange man... after all professors are often strangely dressed...
We agree on
1- I give him 10$ so he show me a coin
3- Then I pay him 100$ if he explains how to find gold in my garden, with a license to keep all the gold for me.
4- Later if he can try to sell few coins to a gold trader with a public billing I agree to pay him 890$
I pay him 10$, and later he came back with a tiny showel, dig mysteriously, find what looks like a coin.
My wife looks at it, and it seems genuine but it is done so quickly that nothing is sure.
He gave me strange maps of treasure, with depth, signs to follow... I pay 100$.
I test for month in vain in my garden.
Later he came back with a friend who certify one of the coin is good gold... later we discover that he does not know how to differentiate nitric acide and chloridric acid...
Then he dig into my garden in a tent, say he find a nice handful of coin, that I never see myself, present me a gold trader, show me the bill for the trade, and finally publish the report of a satisfying sale...
But things seems more frightening as all seems fake, from the tent, the client, the coin, ... I ask him what he is playing with, so he reassure me, because maybe I simply don't understand academics ...
He sue me for 890$
Finally I did not pay, because OK to pay 110$ to see, but once I've seen there is nothing, I just want this bum put in jail... I'm a nasty capitalist, a bit moralist too.
Pardon me Lord.
Moderating myself. Moved to The Playground, because too nasty story.