Murderous doppelgängers, MascaraGate & Billy McFarland's $1800/hr consulting 👀🍿🧃

Hi Wrecklings!

Buckle up, this week’s headlines are absolutely unreal.

• ❗️“Dirty Soap: The Laundress was the nice detergent on the market. Until people started breaking out into hideous rashes”- This is one of the most alarming corporate stories we’ve ever included in this newsletter❗️

• These were too insane to be lost under the Serious Reads header. These women did WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!!?

  • “‘Doppelganger murder’: German prosecutors claim woman killed lookalike to fake death”

  • “A Woman Used A Poisoned Cheesecake To Try To Kill A Friend Who Looked Like Her And Steal Her Identity, Prosecutors Said”

• “A group of guys on TikTok have been fermenting kimchi inside a Dave & Buster's and this is exactly the kind of content the internet was designed for”- And they’re also (allegedly) making pickles in a Chuck E. Cheese?

• “Fyre Fest fraudster Billy McFarland is back — and asking $1,800 an hour for ‘consulting’”- Excuse me, I have nothing to say to this. So I’ll be back, just going to scream into the void.

Billy McFarland @pyrtbilly

I executed one of the most viral social media campaigns. Ever. I also fucked up, broke the law, and spent 4 years in jail. Used that time, including 10 months in solitary, plotting how to make it up to everyone. Want to learn my method? Here’s how I got my start in NYC at 19.

• ''New York Stock Exchange's 'disaster recovery configuration' was caused by HUMAN ERROR as hundreds of stocks experienced wild price swings and halted trades when markets opened yesterday''- It feels like this is a concerningly fragile system…

• “There's no whiskey in mini bottles of Fireball, so customers are suing for fraud”- Having purchased more than one of these in my youth, this is the sneakiest bait and switch ever.

• “A high school basketball coach is still out $10,000 after Southwest canceled a flight and left his whole team stranded in Las Vegas for 5 days over Christmas. They ended up chartering a bus to drive 18 hours home in the snow.”- Good for these folks for going to the media.

• At some point influencers need to hire publicists to kindly tell them to STFU:

  • “I’m an influencer and it’s just as hard as doing surgery”

  • ''YouTube influencer sparks outrage saying ‘if you don’t have a Lamborghini in your 20s, you should have a ‘serious’ talk with yourself’''

• “This House Is Going Viral on TikTok for Having ‘The Worst Layout Ever’”- I’ll never be able to look at Land O’ Lakes butter again without thinking about nudist resorts.

• I’ve been a huge fan of Hindenburg since they took down Nikola, they’re like the vigilantes of the finance world:

  • ''World's third-richest man is accused of pulling 'the largest con in corporate history': Gautam Adani - worth $125 billion - is called out after two-year probe by infamous short seller Hindenburg Research''

  • ''Adani Defends Itself After Fraud Allegations. But the Real Victim May Be India’s Reputation''

• ''People Are So Worked Up About Mikayla Nogueira's Mascara Scandal That Even Jeffree Star Is Getting Involved''- I would have been absolutely bamboozled by this TikTok but based on the comments, the best eyelash “hack” remains to be just…fake lashes?

• ''Major insurers plan to drop two car models’ coverage due to thefts''- Imagine buying a car that you then can’t get coverage for because the manufacturers f’ed up.

• ''Anna Delvey Is Already A Better Talk Show Host Than Fallon”- The transformation from scammer to celeb is nearly complete.

• ''Uber Eats now shows you how much of your information is shared with delivery people''- I like this feature. Even better if it also said, “all this food is definitely for two people, not one.” JK, based on the number of utensils the restaurant puts in the bag, it seems like we’re allllllll good on that assumption.

• ''Consumers often can’t detect fake reviews – and underestimate how many negative reviews can be fake''- Tbh I absolutely would have fallen into this belief myself.

• ''Thom Browne's win against Adidas is also one for independent designers, he says''- Nice to see that Adidas can’t bogart black and white stripes.

• ''TikTok star’s assistant must ‘have no life,’ ‘cook and clean’ for $30K a year''- This screams of eight men who wish they still lived with their mothers.

• “'People Think This “Trad Life” Carnivore Influencer Is Secretly A Woman. He Isn’t.''- While this article sounds sinister, it’s a pretty good read about the person behind a meme account (which is also a funny one).

• ''New scam targets restaurant patrons''- Ok, this is actually INSANE. New paranoia unlocked.

• Let’s check in on the fraud that’s probably actually 245 salamanders in a suit:

  • ''George Santos' ex-boyfriend said he lived with the congressman and his wife while they were still married but thought the couple were just friends at the time: 'We all used to go party together'''

  • ''Inside George Santos’s District Office: Nothing to See Here''

  • ''George Santos Commemorates Holocaust After Lying About It''

• ''Viktor & Rolf couture show features upside-down and sideways gowns''- I am obsessed with all of the looks in this show. But also imagine being the model told to walk down the runway in this:

viktorandrolf

A post shared by Viktor&Rolf (@viktorandrolf)

---

More Serious Stories

We realize some of these can be triggering for some readers, so feel free to skip! Also, sometimes we use weird letter subs so we’re not flagged as gross spam email.

• ‘'Florida Woman Arrested For Defrauding Holocaust Survivor Of $2.8 Million In Connection With Romance Scam''

• ''Influencer 'vulnerable' on Instagram over disability f3tishism''

• ''Why the moral panic over "grooming" is so effective at manipulating the right-wing mind''

• ''Beneath M&M's candy-coated image switcheroo is a dark chocolatey, ethically broke business''

• ''Alex Murdaugh's son Buster, 26, stares at him in courtroom - before he is set to testify AGAINST him - as his trial gets underway for killing of his wife and other son''

• ''Furious real-life Squid Game contestants consider suing Netflix as they claim they were 'treated like animals'... while two players are 'kicked out for having s3x'''

• ''Seven More Women Say “Scrubs” Producer Eric Weinberg S3xually Assaulted Them After Asking Them To Come To His Home For Photo Shoots''

• “Iowa woman aged just 19 is charged with scamming $37,000 from 439 well-wishers by lying that she had pancreatic cancer and a FOOTBALL-sized tumor on her spine”

• ''‘Everything is fake’: how global crime gangs are using UK shell companies in multi-million pound crypto scams''

---

Have a story or tip you’d like to submit? Share it at Hello@TheWreckList.com or drop us a DM on Instagram.

Got feedback for us? Let us know here - the form is also totally anonymous so please bring the brutal honesty.

P.S. While we’re obsessed with these stories, we don’t endorse any of these insane behaviors. 💋