Too Good To Be True: 49 Things That Look Like Scams But Actually Work

The original snake oil, while not at all functional, wasn’t intended to be a scam, at least as far as we know. Chinese traditional medicine posits that oil taken from the skin of a Chinese water snake may have some medicinal properties, and was likely brought into the English language through Asian railway workers in the 19th century. 

Interestingly, oil taken from a Chinese water snake has a particularly high concentration of omega−3 fatty acids, more than salmon and the fish oils many people use as supplements. While just omega-3 fatty acids aren’t magic sure, they are not harmful and do have some health benefits. However, the real scams began when salespeople in the US, unable to procure Chinese snakes, turned to using rattlesnake oil. 

There is a possible, secondary European connection, as some folk medicine recommends viper oil to treat certain conditions. This doesn’t really have any basis in reality, plus there is the additional risk of needing to harvest oil from a venomous snake. Nevertheless, up until the mid-19th century, snake oil was commonly bought and sold, including by William Rockefeller Sr., the father of John D. Rockefeller, who technically was a literal snake oil salesman. 

In an even more convoluted twist, one of the original snake-oil salesmen, as we think of the term today, was a man named Clark Stanley, sometimes called the "Rattlesnake King," who sold, you guessed it, what he said was oil from rattlesnakes, which was supposed to cure all sorts of ailments. He was exposed as a fraud in 1916, which is likely the reason we still compare scam products to snake oil. 

In a twist that shouldn’t surprise any 21st-century person, Clark Stanley’s rattlesnake oil didn’t even contain any snake oil. On the one hand, the presence of snake oil wouldn’t have made a lick of difference, but it seems like a colossal risk to sell a fake product that doesn’t even have the magic ingredient it’s marketed for. His reputation was destroyed when this uncomfortable fact was discovered and he was fined $20. 

While snake oil might be on the decline, there is no shortage of modern quackery, from medicinal Tibetan singing bowls to expensive dietary supplements that have minerals and vitamins found in the most basic veggies and fruits. These days, there is less pressure to persecute these salespeople, because, let’s face it, a fool, and their money will be parted pretty quickly anyway.