Episode 27 – The Million Dollar Challenge with Richard Saunders
“Prove it.” It’s the catch cry of skeptics and critical thinkers around the world. Presented with fraudulent claims of psychic powers and...
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Episode 26 – F Is For Fake with Simon Caterson
Orson Welles’ last project before the descending into a life of frozen pea commercials and voicing Transformers was F Is A Fake. The film...
Episode 25 – Romance Scam Survivor with Jan Marshall
Jan Marshall is an extraordinary woman. Having studied psychology, sold computers in the early days of personal computing and travelled...
Welcome To 2016
Scamapalooza returns this week with a miniepisode that, while it doesn’t have a guest, is packed full of news, stories and the tired...
5 Most Popular Scamapaloozas of 2015
After years of procrastinating, Paul Culliver from Mammoth Audio and I finally launched the podcast Scamapalooza in July. Since then,...
Episode 24 – Houdini and The Medium with Jon Cox
In his time, Harry Houdini was known not just as the world’s most famous magician but also as a hoax-buster, exposing fraudulent psychics...
Episode 23 – The Sun and The Moon with Matthew Goodman
On 25 August, 1835, The Sun newspaper printed a series of hoax articles claiming they’d found life on the moon including man-bats, two...
Episode 22 – Piff The Magic Dragon with John Van Der Put
Of all the magicians I’ve met, Piff The Magic Dragon is the most unique. After all, he’s a dragon who has appeared on Las Vegas casino...
Episode 21 – The Sting with Matthew Specktor
There are two types of con artist movies: those made before The Sting and those made after The Sting. The 1973 George Roy Hill film won...
Episode 20 – Sucker with Lawrence Leung
On a cold wet Scottish night over five years ago at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I had a quiet drink with comedian Lawrence Leung in a...
Episode 18 – Keeping The Bastards Dishonest with Dee Madigan
Dee Madigan is an advertising creative and political campaigner who spends her days selling politicians to the public and her nights...
Episode 17 – The Cottingley Fairies with Sarah Baggs
In 1920, five photographs took the world by storm. Taken by two young girls, Elsie Wright and Francis Griffith, the photos appeared to...
Episode 16 – Scam School with Brian Brushwood
Brian Brushwood is the ultimate drinking buddy. A king of bar magic, propositional wagers and short cons. Since 2008, Brian has been...
Episode 15 – Out Of Your Mind with Art Maines
On Scamapalooza I spend a lot of time talking about how people get scammed but very little time asking why? What is it that makes some...
Episode 14 – Snipe Hunts with Laura Davis
The snipe hunt, the art of sending a sucker to find something that doesn’t exist, is a grand and noble tradition. Jerks the world over...
Episode 13 – The Man Who Lost Himself with Robyn Annear
The Tichborne Claimant was either a 19th century lord, long thought missing at sea or a butcher from Wagga spinning an elaborate lie to...
Episode 12 – The Magic Castle with Magician Rob Zabrecky
Rob Zabrecky was once the leader singer of indie rock band Possum Dixon. Now he’s a magician on the board of trustees of The Magic Castle...
Episode 11 – Just A Little Prick with Mark Crislip MD
In 1998, Andrew Wakefield fooled the world into believing that the MMR Vaccine causes autism. Almost two decades later and his scam is...
Episode 10 – Now You Seem Mean with Nick Mason
Nicholas has a love/hate relationship with the 2013 magician heist movie film Now You See Me. On the one hand, it is a con artist heist...
Episode 8 – A Fool and A Thief with Simon Pampena
Melbourne Stand up mathematician Simon Pampena specialises in explaining complex math to simple minds. In this episode, Nicholas tries to...
Here you'll find resources for teaching and promoting critical thinking, scam protection, and deception education. Many are linked to his school incursions while others are just for fun.
Make sure you subscribe to Nicholas's podcast. Scamapalooza. He interviews psychologists, authors, and researchers about why people are so easy to fool.
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