Idealogian

Get Rich Quick

Do you want to get rich quick? Who doesn't!? But before jumping right in and trying your own scheme, you'd be well advised to learn from the mistakes and misfortune of others:

A German court convicted two men of staging a chainsaw accident in which one of them cut off the other's thumb and forefinger to claim 40,000 euros ($44,780) in insurance money, authorities said on Friday.

"One man held onto a cutting board and the other sawed his fingers off," presiding judge Juergen Treu said at the court in the southern town of Wuerzburg.

The 58-year-old landscape gardener then threw away the fingers and claimed money from two different insurers.

Police later uncovered the ruse after receiving an anonymous tip-off. "One of the men had been blabbing about it," Treu said.

Lessons learned:

1. Don't blab. Duh. That's almost as bad as the super-villain who details his entire plot right before dropping the hero into the shark tank.
2. Don't cut off important body parts. A good get-rich-quick scheme should not involve actual loss of blood (though ketchup may be used effectively) and will rarely involve a chain saw.

Maybe if I come across some other good/bad ones, I can make this an ongoing series.