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Pulling off a major scam and making money in this illegal way is something not everybody can do. It requires intelligence, planning, and a lack of morals to be able to take advantage of other people. The Tinder Swindler is a new Netflix hit that shows what happens when somebody uses others to profit off of them. Simon Leviev used Tinder to scam both his girlfriends and female friends and got them to loan him thousands of dollars.
To this day, the women didn't get their money back from him, and it's unlikely they ever will. While The Tinder Swindler is one of a kind, there are other intriguing movies on Netflix that work with the topic of scams and con artists, both fictional ones and documentaries, that the fans of The Tinder Swindler could enjoy.
6 Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator (2019)
Scamming someone out of money is bad enough, especially if it means that person will get into debt as a result. But taking advantage of someone in a physical way is even worse, as many people would argue. Bikram Choudhury founded hot yoga, which is popular to this day. But the way Choudhury went about his business proves that even when people sometimes have a good concept in their hands, their lack of morality can twist it.
Choudhury not only submitted the people who studied yoga under him to some grueling conditions but was also accused of sexual harassment. Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator isn't always easy to watch because of the topic it works with, but it's highly relevant.
5 Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019)
Some swindlers and scammers are able to pull the scam off for a long time. This movie shows what happens when the truth comes out relatively fast. It focuses on Billy McFarland, who promised to organize an epic music festival, Fyre, but instead, he committed fraud and took money from investors who believed in his plan.
The movie is a good example that with strong enough marketing, even a scam can take off and do a lot of damage to people who believed in it. While it doesn't quite have the same personal level as The Tinder Swindler that focused on love, it still makes the audience think and is a fascinating story.
4 Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art (2020)
Simon Leviev pretended to be the heir of a prominent family operating with diamonds, but there are many other areas in which people can scam others. One of the most prominent ones includes art and paintings since there have been multiple cases of forged paintings in the past, as well as movies made about them.
The recent document Made You Look chronicles one of the largest art frauds that ever happened. The focus is on the Knoedler Gallery that sold multiple fake paintings. Even though the movie talks about art, it's understandable even for people who don't normally pay much attention to the topic. And just like with The Tinder Swindler, what makes the story even more surprising is how long the fraud went on before it all came tumbling down.
3 Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal (2021)
Everybody interested in the system of higher education in the USA most likely heard about this scandal before. A group of people, including known celebrities, paid a man who helped their children get into some of the most prestigious American universities, regardless of what their school results were.
Of course, the scam eventually came out, and the documentary explores how it could have happened in the first place. It's a fascinating watch for both people who live in the USA and want to know more details as well as for those who have no idea how the American university system works.
2 Love Hard (2021)
Simon in The Tinder Swindler tricks women into giving him money. But there are multiple ways how to lie on Tinder, and one of them is to catfish people by pretending to be someone else. In this romantic Christmas comedy, Nina Dobrev plays Natalie, a journalist who meets a wonderful guy named Josh on Tinder. But when she goes to surprise him for Christmas, she discovers she's been catfished and Josh looks very different.
While in normal life, this situation would have led to an immediate break-up, Natalie and Josh eventually find their way to each other. If the audience wants to watch a more idyllic story after the brutal reality of The Tinder Swindler, this movie is a good choice as it's funny and has an excellent cast. Other than Dobrev, it also stars Jimmy O. Yang and Darren Barnet.
1 Lords Of Scam (2021)
The sad truth is that scams are happening everywhere, no matter what country people live in. This French documentary maps a bold scam from people who managed to get millions of Euros from the EU carbon system. It almost looked like everything would be alright for them, but something simple stepped in the way - human greediness.
Even though the movie introduces a topic that many viewers might not be familiar with, it does so in an accessible and catchy way. Lords of Scam proves that even though people can pull off various difficult scams, in the end, they and their human errors are always the weakest links of the chain.