Times Square has attracted hustlers of all stripes for more than a century, each attempting to hustle tourists and other passing strangers out of their money.

Barkers who make outrageous claims and otherwise lie to persuade you to buy vouchers for comedy club tickets aren’t new, either.

Google “Times Square comedy barkers” and the top result is a warning posted to TripAdvisor back in 2010. In the nine years I’ve lived in New York City, every walk through Times Square has included at least one barker attempting to lure me to “comedy show” or “Comedy Central showcase,” or I’ve overheard them selling tourists on the idea of Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, or Louis CK. But usually it’s more vague than that. “Comedy Central Showcase” is not only what they say, but also the signs they’ll often hold up. Or they tell tourists they’ll see comedians who have been on The Tonight Show or HBO. Or Letterman before that.

Here’s a selfie I took in March 2015:

I feel bad for the @comedycentral talent scouts who have to go to all of these comedy club showcases every single night in #NYC. That's so many showcases! A photo posted by Sean L. McCarthy (@thecomicscomic) on Apr 8, 2015 at 3:58pm PDT

A crime column in the New York Times on Monday, though, found one woman duped into thinking she’d see Tina Fey performing stand-up (when has that ever happened, outside of her hosting an awards show, anyhow?!), and then returned to Times Square on a subsequent afternoon hoping to hunt down the lying barker.

When the NYT got involved, even on page A16 of the old broadsheet (and shared more among the comedy community via Facebook), City Hall noticed.

The city’s consumer affairs department mailed a letter dated Wednesday to comedy clubs asking for their help to crack down on fraudulent barkers in and around Times Square.

It reads: