sucker trap

plural sucker traps · alternative sucker's trap · alternative sucker-trap

1. informalA scam; a fraudulent deal offered to the unwary.

   I fell for a sucker trap and got taken but good. My own fault ... should have known better.

   2001, Mickey Spillane, The Mike Hammer Collection, volume 1, →ISBN

   3 more examples

   'At this time of the year, Florida's the biggest sucker-trap on earth. On the East Coast they fleece the millionaires. Where we're going they just take it off the little man. Serves him right, of course. He goes there to die. He can't take it with him.'

   1954, Ian Fleming, “The Everglades”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 119

   It had been a sucker trap and they had fallen right into it. Why, they had walked in here of their own free will, to keep an appointment made by the US Embassy.

   2011, Ken Follett, On Wings of Eagles, →ISBN

   “Such a cheap sucker trap... a cheap sucker trap... and I fell for it!” he was hissing, glaring at Koves with a look of hatred from behind misted-up spectacles.

   2013, Imre Kertész, Fiasco, →ISBN