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AndyB1976 t1_jcwthk2 wrote

So he lied about his lies and had a movie made about his lies starring two of Hollywood's top leading men. How much did he make off the movie? Sounds like a rather successful con.

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moonpumper t1_jcxpfdg wrote

Sounds like he basically could have been a screenwriter if they just removed "true story" from the movie.

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ideal_observer t1_jcy4zhw wrote

I think part of what worked about the movie was that it was advertised as a true story. If it hadn’t been, people would have called it ridiculous and unrealistic.

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T1Pimp t1_jcy3v3t wrote

A true master of the long con.

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sloppymcgee t1_jcysl6x wrote

They should make a movie about it

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mtpgod t1_jcz84bt wrote

A movie about the con of a con who conned Hollywood? Sign me up, again.

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HypnoSmoke t1_jd0qnqe wrote

Plot twist: this article is misinformation designed by Abagnale for this purpose exactly

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PhasmaFelis t1_jd00lsu wrote

Ironically, he became a successful con artist by lying about being a successful con artist.

The embodiment of "fake it 'til you make it"

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InternetPeon t1_jcwlvha wrote

Con men gonna con.

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supercyberlurker t1_jcwspa5 wrote

Yeah, from my perspective he never lied about being a con artist.. and like a true con artist, what we thought was the con wasn't the true con. In the end he gets this movie made about him and we're all going "lol but it's fake"... well... yeah? That just proves he's good at being a con artist!

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bigbangbilly t1_jcwwh3f wrote

Basically if there was a movie based on this, the sequel is actually a reboot which really highlights the dangers of Orwellian revisionism

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Obi_Vayne_Kenobi t1_jcxkiay wrote

It reminds me of the classic joke:

Did you know that elephants are extremely good at hiding in trees?

>!Well, have you ever seen an elephant hiding in a tree? No? Now you know why!<

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throwawayyourfun t1_jcxu6wr wrote

Why do elephants have wrinkled knees? From jumping out of trees.

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Obi_Vayne_Kenobi t1_jcxua6j wrote

Why do elephants paint their balls red?

>! To hide in cherry trees!<

What is the loudest sound in the savanna?

>! Giraffes eating cherries!<

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picklesTommyPickles t1_jcy3smf wrote

Respectfully stolen from the dad joke YouTube vids?

0

Obi_Vayne_Kenobi t1_jcy43c5 wrote

Pretty sure the joke is much older than YouTube. My father shared with me before YouTube was a thing. We're German, so the joke is probably really fucking old if people across the globe know about it

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mawgspawn t1_jczpu9m wrote

My dad’s favorite joke: Why do ducks have flat feet? To stamp out Forrest fires.

Why do elephants have flat feet? To stamp out burning ducks.

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SelectiveSanity t1_jcylfin wrote

Kind of like how purple makes orks invisible.

Wot, ye gits never seen da purple ork? Exactly.

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rood_sandstorm t1_jcx8v4o wrote

And then a few years later he will claim it’s actually all true and you’ve been conned into thinking it was all lies

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gordo65 t1_jcxlofn wrote

I think the reason so many people are convinced is that weaving in the story of being pursued by the FBI gives the impression that the stories are confirmed by that agent, when in fact we have only Abignale’s word.

And of course, the stories are really fun, so people want to believe them.

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twcau t1_jcxo5er wrote

Well duh.

When your Wikipedia page has a whole section with citations devoted to how your claim to fame is based on proven lies…

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[deleted] t1_jczuj33 wrote

[removed]

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BriskHeartedParadox t1_jcxldqq wrote

I kinda respect this. Skipped the criminal part and went straight to reformed.

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DFWPunk t1_jcyfjfx wrote

Except he didn't. He was in prison for most of the time covered by is lies. He just wasn't the amazing criminal he claimed to be.

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woodiegutheryghost t1_jcyzeh0 wrote

Except he was a fucking creep.

> University of Arizona officials acknowledge that Abagnale had interacted with 12 female students.[34] Abagnale has openly acknowledged that he performed examinations on young women while impersonating a doctor: "When the girls came by, I always gave them a thorough examination and sent them on their way.

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CrewMemberNumber6 t1_jcwpfpo wrote

George Santos Sr?

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ChubblesMcgee103 t1_jcxmnju wrote

Ok come on he's bad but he's not that bad. Frank lies way less than Santos.

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AlleyCatStoner t1_jcxy2ss wrote

Right it’s not about the quantity all the time, gotta keep the quality consideration

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vineyardmike t1_jcx9kz7 wrote

He had a pretty good career working in preventing fraud. I guess he decided that he had to beef up his credentials by claiming he was much more successful as a check forger then he actually was.

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ThatOneThingOnce t1_jcxyqda wrote

I'm pretty sure he didn't even prevent fraud or work for the FBI. Like, his ENTIRE story is made up, save the part that they made a movie about him and his lies.

>Journalist Ira Perry was unable to find any evidence that Abagnale worked with the FBI; according to one retired FBI special agent in charge, Abagnale was caught trying to pass personal checks in 1978 several years after he claimed that he began working with the FBI.[34] Dating back to the 1980s, Abagnale claimed that Joseph Shea, an FBI agent, had pursued him for 5 years (between 1965 and 1970).[106] Abagnale claimed that Shea befriended and supervised him during his parole.[5] When Catch Me If You Can was released in theatres, though, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Abagnale and Shea only reunited in the late 1980s, almost 20 years after Shea arrested him. Abagnale spotted Shea at an anticrime seminar in Kansas City and sought out Shea to shake his hand.[107]

>When the film was released, an FBI spokesperson acknowledged that Abagnale had given lectures at the academy "from time to time," but denied that Abagnale had been given commendations by the agency as claimed in the film's marketing.[108] At no point has the FBI made an official statement corroborating Abagnale's biographical claims, nor has the agency confirmed his extraordinary claims that he was sent into a military base as an expert on missiles, and into a secret lab in New Mexico.[53][109] Abagnale has claimed in public lectures that he was discussed in detail in a coffee-table book celebrating 100 years of the FBI.[53] However, Abagnale's name does not appear anywhere in the official book celebrating 100 years of the FBI.[110] In his public lectures, Abagnale has taken on a pseudo-spokesperson role for the FBI. In discussing recruitments, he states, "currently [2017] we take 1 in 10,000 applications."[53] Abagnale made this same claim of 1 in 10,000 applications to Idaho Statesman journalist Michael Katz in 2019.[111] Overall approximately 11,500 applications per year are made for 900 positions at the FBI (2018 statistics), which is about one in 13 applicants.[112]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale

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vineyardmike t1_jczgflg wrote

I was thinking more about his personal business that seems to be focused on speaking engagements.

One takeaway I got was you're better off using a credit card than a debit card because you have no liability on a credit card for fraudulent purchases. The caveat would be that you need to pay your credit card on time.

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LivingLawfulness t1_jcwydfx wrote

These people really thought a con artist had to be honest about the shit they do

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halfanothersdozen t1_jcwwn0y wrote

Wait I thought all movies had to be real? You're saying this whole thing was fiction? How can this be?

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inaddition290 t1_jcyx5xq wrote

The issue is that it bills itself as completely true, when there’s really no truth in it at all.

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LuckyDuck4 t1_jd00qp1 wrote

Tbf when Hollywood advertises something as “Based on a true story,” that is almost always a clear indicator that it is either completely fictional, or takes so many liberties with the actual story that it is practically fictional.

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Freshiiiiii t1_jcze1ks wrote

I find that even funnier given the context. It’s a con about a con. To me, this doesn’t ruin it at all.

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DJWGibson t1_jcxw18c wrote

>A new report from the New York Post claims that Frank Abagnale Jr actually 'lied' about his 'lifetime of lies'.

This makes it seem like this is a new revelation, but people have been calling bullshit on him since his memoir was published in the 1980s.

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abyess t1_jcxhfcl wrote

This is actually interactive art over decades

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PlayTheHits t1_jcyggkg wrote

To his credit, Abagnale prefaces his book by saying he interweaves fiction with the facts. The genius is he never specifies what percent of the writing is what and invites you to fill in the blanks. Naturally most of us like the romantic idea of the sympathetic conman and decided that 90% of what he said was true. Then, upon learning this is not the case we feel (gasp) conned.

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TigerUSF t1_jcxqfhs wrote

The real con was the grift we had along the way

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virgilreality t1_jcxyril wrote

In a completely unrelated news story, Donald Trump just named him head of his election campaign.

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chazwomaq t1_jcxjzhr wrote

The grammar is all wrong. He didn't "lie about his lies". He lied about (some of ) his claims. Lying about a lie is telling the truth.

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Alexis_J_M t1_jd0jbir wrote

Two wrongs don't make a right, and two lies don't make a truth.

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DaveOJ12 t1_jcwsndh wrote

Tell us something we don't know.

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kanekong t1_jcxey2b wrote

I don't believe it.

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HistoryBuffLakeland t1_jczkslk wrote

Not only was he a conman, turns out he conned everyone into thinking he was a conman.

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AndroidDoctorr t1_jcy243k wrote

No shit. The whole time I was watching that movie I was thinking "how do they know this happened? Because he said so?"

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MrWindblade t1_jczawhr wrote

I really liked the movie, and I believed he did some of those things - like impersonating different people and doing check fraud - but I figured most of it was massively embellished to make a cool movie.

Too many of the things they claimed he did were impossible to get away with unless everyone else in the universe was dumb as hell.

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not_a_droid t1_jczd2xh wrote

That’s meta as shit; Charlie Kaufman weeps

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FriedrichHydrargyrum t1_jczl79c wrote

Well duh.

His book/movie were very entertaining, but it’s not wise to believe the self-proclaimed king of liars is telling the truth.

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shady8x t1_jczo3ja wrote

Sounds like someone should make a movie about it... but seriously Catch Me If You Can was really good so I ain't even mad.

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grandFossFusion t1_jczqaw2 wrote

There is no fucking way at least quarter the movie is true. If he had really tried to scum air companies for millions, he would quickly have been found dead with a bottle of nice Champagne up his ass

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scipio0421 t1_jd017zu wrote

Wait, the guy known for being a conman was conning us? Shocking.

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Competitive_String75 t1_jcxqkdi wrote

He is a complete hypocrite as I listened to him once on stage at a conference pleading with the audience to follow some societal normalcies

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colemon1991 t1_jcy6zf7 wrote

We've known this for at least a decade. I'm pretty sure it came out after the movie's release.

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0le_Hickory t1_jcyeptx wrote

Yeah. I thought we all knew that he was an unreliable narrator.

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itoleck t1_jcyr1xj wrote

The next thing you are going to tell me is that cocaine bear didn't really do cocaine. 🐻

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NemosGhost t1_jczn7cq wrote

He did though. Just didn't live too long after doing so.

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Throsty t1_jcz6obq wrote

It was George Santos all along!

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BenWallace04 t1_jczrbpt wrote

Isn’t this really old news?

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Hospitalwater t1_jd0ndlo wrote

Con artist conned people into thinking he was a bigger con artist than he conned and conned his way to a successful con artist. What a legend.

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username87264 t1_jcxrtqw wrote

I mean - I hope they're not surprised.

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Sacrifice_bhunt t1_jcxwcsa wrote

He’s probably lying about lying about his lies?

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nknecht1 t1_jcy3fzk wrote

Yeah this makes a lot more sense honestly

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DFWPunk t1_jcybnu1 wrote

Author discovers that something we already know wasn't true, isn't true.

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sugar_addict002 t1_jcyqp2i wrote

New York Post

kind of like believing Fox News when they say stuff

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jbh70 t1_jcyyg4c wrote

What????? How can this be?? A know liar lying about his life. Shocking!

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ToughMuffin035 t1_jcz1jda wrote

I thought this was common knowledge. Lol

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JauntyTurtle t1_jcz9esz wrote

He pretty much admits that it's all fake in the intro to his book.

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DamonFields t1_jczr7y9 wrote

When liars speak, it really doesn’t mean anything.

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jonasmarbles t1_jczt40b wrote

He’s a con man? Of course he lied.

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Zeothalen t1_jczvgow wrote

Oh no the guy who told lies is a liar am shocked

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ToDandy t1_jd00cpx wrote

When you lie about your lies so well that your lies can be used as the basis of a Hollywood classic- are you really a fraud of a conman?

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jestenough t1_jd04alz wrote

Now do Ferdinand Demara and “The Great Impostor.” Sounds like although some suspected his claims, there was mostly truth, enough to follow him around and make his life difficult. There was a book that vouched for him.

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Bear_nuts t1_jd0wlv7 wrote

Lmfao how he got “caught” is the funny part. Dude attended a talk in 1981 and been a hater since 😂

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GiraffeandZebra t1_jcz4qw7 wrote

FOR FUCKS SAKE WE KNOW. WE KNEW 20 GODDAMN YEARS AGO.

Now stop posting this shit on every fucking subreddit.

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TheMatt561 t1_jcxgozm wrote

He did most of what he said

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