TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Telegraph Office Scene in the Movie "The Sting"

Telegraph Office Scene in the Movie "The Sting"

hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
13 Feb 2006 13:10:40 -0800

Around 1973 a popular movie, "The Sting" with Robert Redford and Paul
Newman came out. Redford and Newman were con artists. Part of their
scheme involved making their target think they had advance horse race
information from Western Union. That is, someone from a WU office
would secretly pass along the results of a race upon receipt a few
minutes before WU relayed the results to local offices.

To convince their target, the con artists "borrowed" a Western Union
local office for a few minutes. They pretended to be painters with an
official work order and marched into the manager's private office
announcing they had orders to paint and began to set up. The manager
went out to the front office while they worked. Then one of the
painters posed as the office manager. The con target was brought in
through a rear door to meet the fake "manager" so the scheme appeared
ok. As soon as that was done the painters took off. The real manager
came back in thoroughly puzzled.

It was a good movie.

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