Through the years, some con artists have gotten rich by selling people swamp land in Florida. They were really selling people a dream, and they found a way to get them to suspend belief and buy the land without seeing it. The new equivalent of swampland in Florida is desert land in Utah. The New York Times reports that charges will be filed against cons who sold parcels in Utah over the phone and Internet to people in the United States, Europe and Australia. The land was supposedly adjacent to a very metropolitan city. But when people would go to Utah to see their new homestead, they'd find that the city didn't even exist! Worse still, the land they'd purchased could not be developed.

This new twist on the old rip-off scheme started when cons learned about a Utah land rush and bought up property that couldn't be developed. Then they subdivided the land and sold five-acre spreads to rip people off. Clark has two simple rules to follow when buying land. First, never buy property without first seeing it. Second, make sure the land has water rights or it's going to be useless to you. This second caveat is especially important if you're buying in one of the mountain states. The New York Times article was cute in a way, according to Clark. They sent a reporter to find one of these "conveniently located" parcels in Utah. The reporter got to the location -- some 150 miles away from Brigham City -- and found an area where the only inhabitants were a snake, a beetle and a lot of large ants! Let the buyer beware!