fraud, fraudulence, dupery, hoax, humbug, put-on

something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage

• goldbrick — anything that is supposed to be valuable but turns out to be worthless
• Piltdown man, Piltdown hoax — a supposedly primitive man later proven to be a hoax

• trickery, chicanery, guile, wile, shenanigan — the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)