Even the ‘Scam Goddess’ isn’t above getting hustled

As her hit podcast expands to YouTube, Laci Mosley dishes on her growing empire, scams of 2026, and more.

When Laci Mosley passed through JFK Airport recently, she was already having a terrible day and just trying to get from point A to point B.

So when a “woo-woo” white lady approached and struck up a conversation with a strange line of questioning, including “Did another woman upset you?” Mosley didn’t have the energy to fight off the interaction.

“I was just not in a state to, like, fight this off, and so she gave me her card. I gave her my number. She starts contacting me,” she told theGrio over Zoom on Friday.

The stranger offered spiritual advice, and before long, Mosley found herself sending the woman money for a spiritual kit and wound up with a mysterious candle she’s still afraid to throw away. But that was about when she cut off contact.

“She definitely wanted more and more money, and I was not going for that,” she quipped. After all, you don’t spend seven years building a platform as “The Scam Goddess” without learning a thing or two about how to spot a hustle.

Now, after joining Will Ferrell and iHeartMedia’s Big Money Players network, the 35-year-old comedian and actress is taking her hit podcast to new heights, including YouTube.

“It’s been a shock how far it’s all going,” the Texas native admitted.

With full-length video episodes, fans can now watch Mosley and her celeb guests break down elaborate schemes while getting an eyeful of the host’s animated expressions, fashion, and props.

“Hopefully we can continue to grow and reach more people and teach more people because the show is comedy, but it is also us, like warning you and trying to protect you and your auntie who keeps thinking that Bruno Mars is DMing her on Instagram,” she said with a laugh.

Laci Mosley poses backstage with the award for Favorite Family TV Show at the Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards 2022 at Barker Hangar on April 09, 2022 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Nickelodeon)

Launched in 2019 as a side hustle amid Hollywood’s constant unpredictability, “Scam Goddess” has grown into a multimedia brand with hundreds of thousands of listeners and followers across platforms. Mosley has also earned multiple podcasting awards, published a bestselling book, starred in a Hulu series, and built a devoted following around her takes on history’s most outrageous cons.

“There’s something so interesting about seeing people who look at the rules and decide that those don’t fit them, so they make their own,” she noted. “You get curious about the audacity, about what it takes to do it.”

On a recent episode featuring fellow actress and comedian Dulé Sloan, the “Going Dutch” actress turned her attention to Daejon Love, a California man accused of impersonating a San Francisco 49ers player and swindling women out of more than $1 million. She was especially struck by how easily his supposed identity could be reinforced online.

“I will give [the victims] that benefit of the doubt,” she said, because of the way his misinformation online “fed into AI so much that he was a 49ers player. Google Dejan Love, the AI overview, it will direct you to photos that were from his Instagram, where he was, you know, LARPing as a footballer.”

When she considers how race may have played a role, considering that he’s Black and most of his victims were non-Black women, she said his con worked so well because of the cultural nuances others may not have picked up on so readily.

“There is a culture of young athletic Black men in school being sought after by specific demographics of women who are taught to ‘cook and clean and uplift the man’ until he gets rich enough to take care of your whole life,” she said, adding, “And I just think that Black women would have been like, ‘hey, the math ain’t mathing faster.’”

Beyond the scams and schemes that garner major headlines, Mosley is just as concerned about the ones hiding in plain sight, from fraudulent remote job offers targeting people desperate for work to bogus brand partnerships promising aspiring influencers their big break.

“If the door is closed, they will find a window,” she warned.

The podcast host is also keeping an ever-skeptical eye on the rise of buy-now-pay-later services, questioning what happens when consumers are encouraged to spend money they don’t yet have.

For all the damage scammers can do, the “iCarly” star will be the first to tell you she remains fascinated by their seemingly endless wells of audacity. She believes there’s something remarkable about people who walk into spaces where they have no business being and act as though they belong. It’s a confidence she thinks Black people, who are often made to question their qualifications even after earning their place, could borrow a little of, minus the deception and harm, of course.

“I think we can all learn from scammers, especially when it comes to imposter syndrome, especially for Black folks,” she expressed.

“We’re constantly being gaslit about the spaces that we occupy,” she continued. “Whether it be an affluent space, like let’s say you’re in the first class of some really nice flight, or it be the position you hold at your job, where people are constantly undermining you and assuming that you don’t know things, when in fact you have to at least be twice as talented to even be half as far as those people.”

Laci Mosley attends “Elle Hollywood Rising” presented by Polo Ralph Lauren and Hulu on May 18, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Elle)

However, don’t get her wrong: the actress draws a firm line between finding humor in an outrageous hustle and celebrating someone who exploits vulnerable people.

“If you’re taking money from people who need it, if you’re stealing, if you’re doing love fraud, I absolutely condemn those kinds of scams. They’re gross to me,” she declared.

Whether it’s the promise of a better-paying job, a romantic connection, or a little spiritual reassurance on an otherwise terrible day, scammers know how to identify what people are looking for and offer themselves up as the answer. Even after seven years of studying them, Mosley knows that wanting to believe someone can be powerful.

“Anybody can be scammed because we all have needs, and there’s always a scammer out there ready to prey on whatever your specific need is,” she said.