You Used Confuse Ray, It Was Super Effective!

Our store deals in trading card games. A couple of teenage boys come in and hand a Pokémon card to me.

Teenage Boy #1: “We want to sell this Crystal Charizard Holo Skyridge card!”

Me: “Uh… no.”

Teenage Boy #2: “Huh, how come?”

Me: “That is a card that’s worth thousands. Yours is a fake that you printed out and cut out at home.”

Teenage Boy #2: *To the other boy* “See?! I told you this wouldn’t work!”

Teenage Boy #1: “Can you tell us how you knew?”

Me: “Why? So you can try again?”

Teenage Boy #1: “Uh…”

Me: “What the h***, why not? First, like I said, this is obviously printed at home, and badly. The resolution is terrible, did you get this from a thumbnail?”

Teenage Boy #1: “Well… I—”

Me: “Also, this is supposed to be a holographic card, but your home printer can’t print the shine. It’s just a weird grey.”

Teenage Boy #1: “Okay, but—”

Me: “Also, I can see the watermark from the website you got the image from.”

Teenage Boy #1: “Yeah, the site was asking for money to print without the watermark. Wait. If we paid to get the better-quality image, would it work?”

Obviously, it wouldn’t, but I am having fun.

Me: “Sure, try it out. Good luck!”

I sent the teenagers off to go waste some money on a scam that would never work.