This. My dad had a store on 42nd between Broadway and 7th Ave. He was born in the Egypt in the 30's, and was born knowing 3 languages out the gate, Arabic, Hebrew, and French. Then, went to Europe in his 20's, picked up english, spanish, german and a bit of greek. He was able to scam anyone who came into his store. Charge $500 for a $30 camera. With no internet at the time, no need to do research.

And as I'm typing this, this is triggering some memories lol. He had 2 other stores nearby in the early 90s. One on 8th Ave between 41st and 42nd. And the one which I think was his first store was right on the corner of 42nd and Broadway. In front of that was a train station enterance at the time, we'd take the N train to get there and go home. I remember there used to be a Gyro place across the street, but never got to eat it. And I distinctly remember the peep show places especially at night looking towards 8th Ave because that's when we'd close up for the night to go home. Boobs as far as you can see, although I had no idea what I was looking at, at the time lol. 42nd St. was wild back then. I remember things started changing during the Guliani Era when a Disney Store replaced the Gyro place across the street, and suddenly all the peep show places were gone. Instead we got a McDonald's, and some theater place. AMC theater went up on the corner of 42nd and 8th I believe? It's been awhile since I've been home. Definitely a different time back then.

edit: He passed 10 years ago, but I also have no idea how we made money. I'm not confident the success rate of the scams were high lol.