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I think you misunderstand the example, the point is that because they otherwise looked like schlubs, the car alone didn't count for much status, they just seemed weird or maybe like a put-on. She had every aspect of the "billionaire's concubine" vibe down, so they assumed she must have the money coming and comped her. Like Anna, who I cited below, or Ripley. If the journalists had gone more all-out with their prep, they might have been able to pull off their scam with the Phantom as the capper of a full rich-guy outfit.
No one is paying attention, if you otherwise blend in, most people operate on the heuristic "When you hear hooves think horses not zebras." If it otherwise seems realistic that you went to Princeton from context clues, they're going to trust you pretty far. You're confusing "Could you hold up under questioning by someone looking to cross you up and prove you are lying" with "You will drop enough evidence in casual conversation that someone who doesn't suspect you of lying will catch on." Which are very different standards of difficulty. In Bayesian terms, it just depends what your prior is that he is telling the truth about his affiliations.
This is the importance of thinking about (possibly fake) status indicators as a whole picture rather than individually. Credibility for one comes from the others. If I met some guy in a wal-mart tracksuit parked on the side of the road on my land, and when I went up to ask him what the fuck he was doing he pointed to my hat and said "Oh, I went there too, go [MASCOT!]" I'd be suspicious and maybe ask him a question like "What dorm were you in?" and think he was lying if he didn't have a good answer.
But if I met some impeccably dressed lawyer who said "Oh, I think we share an alma mater" and I replied "Oh, man, remember [Campus landmark]" and he said something noncommital and nonsensical like "You know I never really went there when I was in school" I'd probably think he was weird before thinking he was lying. To be honest, I don't remember my freshman dorm building come to think of it. I remember the complex, but not the small pod building precisely. And I've forgotten a lot of professors, even ones I liked. And I'm pretty sure I was there, so, tough to pin down. It takes really solid evidence to get past a high prior level of certainty.
I have actually called out an imposter in public before, come to think of it, a Kosovar who was whirlwind engaged to a friend of my wife's and was introduced to us. And I have to be honest, long before I started wondering if he was lying about the Physics PhD he was pursuing, I was judging him for a half dozen other things like the obvious green card marriage, his chain smoking cigarettes in the host's house despite being asked not to, his rudeness etc. And that was what got my brain to pick up on things like "Isn't he a little young?" and "How many years does a PhD take anyway?" and "I'm not a physicist but I don't think that's what relativity means." If I had liked him, or he had lacked the credibility anchor of the green card marriage, I might not have noticed those things, or cared about them. Instead we asked him point blank what was up with that, and he wound up confessing to his fiance that he lied three days later. She still married him, of course.
Reminds me of this fun story of the ages, in case you haven't read it: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/magazine/albrecht-muth-and-viola-drath-georgetowns-worst-marriage.html
I believe people can be far more naturally vigilant than you describe. I don't recall meeting too many pretenders recently, but can say that I find poorly written and/or acted dialogue (for specialized vocation that I'm familiar with) immediately and obviously unbelievable. Succession is extraordinarily reviewed and is a great show, but parts of its intense board room scenes are just silly, because no independent (as in, someone without Roy for a last name) director of a F100 company, or C-level execs, would come across as so stupid and ineffectual. In real life, these types of people have a certain look, yet in the show, many of them (who have little to no screen time) are clearly background actors chosen for some superficial demographic reason who are simply missing the vitality and intelligence that should be obvious from their eyes, body language, and even speed of reaction to the latest dialogue around them etc. All very NPC like, and immediately obvious that they didn't go to Princeton followed by Goldman and then HBS and then Blackstone.
Maybe you have, and you haven't detected them! Maybe you're expecting the pretenders to have obvious tells, but they don't, so you miss them entirely. They're out there, more than you think, so many people have secrets you don't suspect.
FWIW, I work in a field full of pretenders and fakes, and my experience is that proper fraud avoidance is to understand that the optimal fraud avoidance strategy does not result in never getting tricked, just in never committing enough money/resources before being certain you aren't getting tricked. I probably waste a lot of time on false leads and fakers every month; but because I know my radar isn't perfect I'd rather be unfailingly polite and follow up on a false opportunity than risk missing out on a good one. At the same time, I don't trust anyone past the contract terms, because I know I might be wrong about them.
((Which is Taleb's real message in that other thread. Not that education makes you dumb son, but that you should have humility about your ability to anticipate everything.))
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