On the front page of Reincarnation Bank, they instruct their potential victims to, "Begin by believing and just do it." If there is one phrase that sums up the basis for every scam in history, that would be it. Imagine a late 19th century huckster going town to town with a cure-all tonic made from a random assortment of potentially lethal ingredients, possibly a combination of laudanum and radium. As he stands on an overturned crate in the middle of the town square shouting at passers-by to try his product for every ailment, be it a headache, a goiter or a troublesome mother-in-law, he would urge each potential customer to "Begin by believing and just do it." In this case, "it" would be consuming a bitch's brew of carcinogens. For our 21st century hucksters over at Reincarnation Bank, "it" means giving your money to people who will hold it for you until you come to retrieve it in your next life.

As I've pointed out before, scams (especially those found on the Internet) are directed at the most mentally deficient people on the planet who haven't (yet) been diagnosed as being developmentally challenged. It takes just the right amount of idiocy, a sweet spot of stupid, if you will. The scam-friendly populace is made up of people who mix magical thinking with bare-bones functionality, stirring the two together into a thick paste using the void where their common sense should be as a cauldron. Reincarnation Bank is looking for that valuable commodity known as dangerously ignorant people who don't have someone manage their money for them.

Though the name can be misleading, Reincarnation Bank doesn't ascribe to any particular philosophy. It casts a wide net, attempting to wrangle Resurrection-crazy Christians, vague New Age types, and the three Asian kids in America who aren't wicked-smart. On its About page, RB invokes the names of Henry Ford and General Patton in an increasingly incoherent attempt to reassure readers that reincarnation is a reasonable belief and that successful people ascribe to it.

When it comes down to the brass tacks of giving these people your money or other precious assets, RB has you transfer from an existing bank account or send via mail to an address in Gibraltar. I guess Nigeria has become too suspicious lately. For those who don't feel like popping over to one of the Internet's many, many resources of accurate historical information, Gibraltar is a small sliver of land connected to Spain but officially under British control. It's subject to a lot of political upheaval and probably doesn't have the most airtight financial policies on the planet.

At the bottom of each RB page there is a link to A Wish 4 You, an even more idiotic scam that charges people ten dollars a pop to make a wish. You know, a wish, those thoughts you have consciously or unconsciously several times a day as a result of our species' ability to conceptualize beyond our immediate conditions. But the wishes at A Wish 4 You aren't just regular wishes. They are, in fact, special Japanese wishes that you make using a magical Wishing Pot (ceramic, not herbal). These pots are completely non-refundable and payments for them are protected using an encryption system no one has ever heard of before. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Japanese Wishing Pots don't actually make your wishes come true. That, or several million Japanese people didn't deem it necessary to wish nuclear fire wasn't raining down on them 70 years ago.

Amount of Time Likely to be Wasted: These sites are brief and really lazy. They're mildly humorous, but I wouldn't expect anyone with more than two brain cells to spend even six minutes on either site.

Likelihood to Result in Arrest in Real Life: High. Most scams actually give you something, like a book or a video about a useless technique for transcendence. Reincarnation Bank takes your money and drops it into a single account in a foreign country. It's only a matter of time before Interpol kicks down their door.

MCDR: Normally I'd say you should take this moment to appreciate the fact that your money is safe in a real, reputable bank, but most of you readers are probably American, so that idea's in the dustbin.

Internet Depth by Preposition: In. We've gone over the scam thing before. Nothing new to see here.