Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) an untrue but totally convincing story, a con-man’s patter.

1952		B. Appel Plunder (2005) 218: I had to give Franny a snow job about you owing me two thousand pesos.
1963		A.S. Fleischman Venetian Blonde (2006) 173: Maggie could lay down a snow job like the blizzard of ’88.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 73: I laid a bogus snow job on them about having met the guy in a pool room.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 63: They just know how to hand out a good snow job.
1986		R. Campbell In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 73: ‘What’s your suspicion?’ ‘Only that there’s been a snowfall.’ ‘To cover just exactly what?’.
1999		Observer Screen 12 Sept. 14: Parker prided himself on his skills as a con artist and used a string of ‘snow jobs’ to pull the wool over the eyes of the people with whom he did business.
2000		Observer Rev. 5 Mar. 10: From snow job to toe job.
2005		Mad mag. Aug. 38: Dubya’s ‘Social Security is going bust’ snowjob.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 285: ‘I need a favor’ [...] ‘Snow job alert. I sense one coming’.