The word “shill” is overused these days.

It’s used now to refer to pretty much anyone who sells or advocates for anything, but it has more precise roots.

A “shill” is a person secretly working with a scammer. They play the part of bystanders interested in the scam, to give real victims the idea that this is safe or legitimate.

A little understanding of that could have provided clarity toward some of the many red flags in this story from TikTok user @nathaliaduques:

“We are in Paris by the Eiffel Tower and I am sobbing because we just got scammed. Everybody tells you about being careful with the scams, but you just really don’t think it’s gonna happen to you.”

If you think you can’t be scammed, you’re almost definitely gonna be.

“We ended up playing this game, this Italian guy was – he had like a lemon and some cups and he was moving them around, and a lot of people were playing into it, which made it seem like it did work, and at the beginning I was like, ‘there is no way those people are with him,’ they were Italians, and we were just sitting in the back watching, and then he was like ‘oh, you should play just for fun,’ and I played once, I played twice, just for fun, ’cause it’s so easy, you spot the lemon.”

Letting you win a couple of times is the hook to grow your confidence.

That way you bet big on the next one, which is when you’ll lose.

“And yesterday we had an unfortunate situation, we got fined, I will tell you guys about that in a second. So we lost a ton of money for that stupid fine, so then we were like, ‘well, maybe we can make that money back.”

If you need to problem-solve financially, gambling is never ever ever ever ever a good solution.

Even if the game weren’t rigged, which it is.

“And literally the minute that I was, ‘okay, I can do this,’ like this person just like drags you in into it, and then the lemon wasn’t there. So they pressure you so hard into it, I’m pretty sure what he did was take the lemon inside his hand, cause it’s not an actual lemon it’s like a ball, but it’s small enough that it can be in his hand.”

Yup. It’s a very simple, very old sleight-of-hand magic trick.

And when I say old, I mean literally the ancient Egyptians were doing this stuff.

“And then as soon as I lost, um, the game was over, and he left, and so I just sat there, and I started sobbing coz I was so mad, because we lost money yesterday with this stupid fine and we lost money today and so I was just so shocked, coz I was convinced it was so easy but, yeah, we just got scammed.”

@nathaliaduques

Sobbing because we got #scamed in Paris! And we got fined by the train people yesterday for the craziest reason… so we basically got scammed twice. Have lost so much money here. My Parisian “dream” is becoming into a nightmare. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

♬ original sound – nathaliaduques

People were…not subtle about it.

This is some basic basic stuff.

Also the gambling instinct was a bad idea.

Though some said take it easy on her.

Look, we all gotta learn this stuff at some point. For her it came a little too late, but hopefully she’ll know for next time.

And it’s not like she’s the only one falling for this. There are plenty of marks out there.

Otherwise the scammers wouldn’t still be pulling the stunt.

If you liked that story, check out this one about a Costco customer who got their cart stolen… so she hatched a plan to get it back!