Does a Con man's Victim Actively Participate in their own Conning?

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=Otara]
More than that research has shown that we’re more likely to be trusting or gullible as we get older. I cant give a cite sorry, it was an article in New Scientist - the theory is its a survival trait I think, in that as you get older you’re more dependent on others so trust becomes more useful than being too suspicous.

After all if you lend someone your car because their car broke down and they’ll be right back, you’ve been conned, but theres nothing dishonest involved.

I suspect people are more talking about cons where a part of the mark is it needing to be secret because you’re getting something you dont deserve.

Thats only one kind of con though, many cons rely on peoples good nature, the obvious one being that reverse Nigeria one, where the person is asked to sell something, and take a check thats larger than the amount needed to pay for it and then pass on the change to the conman. If the person is dishonest/distrusting they keep the check till its cleared and find out its a con when the check bounces and only lose the item they sold at worst - they only get completely ripped off if they’re honest and actually pass on the difference as requested, which apparently happens to a pretty reasonable number of people.

Otara
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Good one-the con man actually trusts his mark to deliver the cash to him! In my book all con men should be ripped off!

22

[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
“You can’t cheat an honest man.” - W.C. Fields
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I forget the movie, but I recall a quote of his that went: “you can’t cheat an honest man, never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump.”

Sometimes the victims have themselves to blame, like the Nigerian scams. But I can see someone falling for the making change for a large phony cashier’s check for a car trick. I can see people getting duped by predatory mortgage brokers. Neither of those two necessarily require the victim to be greedy or looking to make money dishonestly themselves.

23

One very common scam is the quick change artist who preys on a cashiers confusion and inexperience…no greed on the part of the cashier involved at all.

24

[QUOTE=Monty]
I was going to start another thread about this, but I think this is a good place to mention it. Not all victims of a conman are ‘actively assisting’ by trying to get something for nothing. Sometimes the scammer is manipulating the victim’s concern or grief for a significant other. Take this stunt, as described in the e-mail I get from Military Report and on the Red Cross website:
So, sometimes the scammer is just really very good at being slime.
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In my own defense, I agree. I think sometimes con men are a combination of great salesmen and great psychological manipulators. Here’s an experience that happened to me that was in a grey area.

Basically, I was taken in by the “white van speaker scam”. If you’ve not heard of it, this is where one or two guys in a white van approach you (either stop the van near you or lead you up to their parked van) and offer you speakers for sale. The speakers are supposedly “extra” in their recorded shipment, and supposedly “top-of-the-line”, and they just want to sell them to you before they have to tell their boss too many were sent.

Okay, so clearly that preys on people’s greed, right? But here’s the extra wrinkles I experienced. First of all, I was on lunch break, and I was in a hurry. I was alone, and it was a Wal-Mart parking lot. It was the middle of the summer, it was hot as hell, and so I was tired, distracted, and sweaty, and probably looked like I wasn’t ready to put up a fight.

The guy gave me his spiel, and something about it felt funny, and I didn’t feel like I really could afford to give him $200, even if it was for $2000 speakers. So I told him to find someone else. But he pleaded with me because he said he had no way to even drop them off at his home, yada yada, because he was shipping out of town, etc. So I did give him $200 for them, feeling partly that I was doing him a favor. I found out only later that the speakers were crap.

So…whole deal is…greed does play in sometimes. But this guy saw that it wasn’t going to work and immediately shifted to my weak spot, which is…“come on, dude, I really need help this time!” Normally I’d still know better, but I was so distracted…it was like…100% humidity and 100 degrees, and the guy even said, he’d buy me a beer. Furthermore, this is just one part of a motivated business where they print fake-out magazines and spec sheets, and make speakers probably worth $50, and make them look like $1000 speakers…and they employ people with a sales background.

In this case you have a situation where the scammer comes armed with as much marketing, sales, and psychological weaponry as they can legally use. There’s even a proven script they’re trained to follow, like a telemarketer! Some people are even approached at night time and are followed to the ATM machine, so that it’s threatening, almost like a robbery…if you don’t give the guy the money, you wonder if he’ll beat you up. They usually employ large, strong men, too!

So uh…maybe greed is involved…but I think the con-man always knows they’re tricking people, honest or not. They might prefer the dishonest, because they’re easier marks, but that’s just one kind of gullibility!

25

I think you’re lucky the speakers weren’t hot. Actually, that’d be my first thought (“That stuff just has to be stolen”) if someone tried to sell me a speaker from a van in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

26

[QUOTE=Otara]
Thats only one kind of con though, many cons rely on peoples good nature, the obvious one being that reverse Nigeria one, where the person is asked to sell something, and take a check thats larger than the amount needed to pay for it and then pass on the change to the conman. If the person is dishonest/distrusting they keep the check till its cleared and find out its a con when the check bounces…
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I’d actually say the honest behavior is to wait until the check clears. Banks always warn you that deposits will not be available for 3 business days; the honest thing to do would be to wait until you had the funds before writing a check. A dishonest person would write a bad check, expecting it his deposit to clear by the time it arrives.

27

Yeah. Never, ever DEPOSIT a questionable check, and don’t cash it at your bank either. Take it to the bank the check is written from and cash it there. If the funds are not available in the account they won’t give you the money.

If you cash the check at YOUR bank, your bank will expect you to give them back the money! And if you don’t have the money anymore (like, you gave it to some scammer), then you’re screwed.

I learned this when working for a guy who was nice enough but who simply could not balance a checkbook. He’d write checks with only a vague idea of how much money was in his account. So I would always always go directly to HIS bank and cash the check, or find out the check was rubber, and head back to work to demand cash.

28

[QUOTE=Kevbo]
One very common scam is the quick change artist who preys on a cashiers confusion and inexperience…no greed on the part of the cashier involved at all.
[/QUOTE]
According to my dear old dad – a copper for 35 years, the last 20 of it as a detective – we have to distinguish between swindle and confidence game. Anyone can be swindled – that’s what embezzlement is, basically, reporting one thing about the money but doing another. Quick-change artists, “investment” swindlers, and so on are all people who take advantage of unsuspecting people to rob them. A confidence artist (which is what “con” is all about) brings the mark into his or her confidence and specifically plays on the mark’s greed. If the mark displays little or no interest in getting very rich very quickly, the game ends and another mark is selected.

So to answer the OP’s question, yes, the victim of a confidence game is a crucial contributor to his or her own downfall.

29

[QUOTE=Fish]
I’d actually say the honest behavior is to wait until the check clears. Banks always warn you that deposits will not be available for 3 business days; the honest thing to do would be to wait until you had the funds before writing a check. A dishonest person would write a bad check, expecting it his deposit to clear by the time it arrives.
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A big problem with the cashiers check scam is that it takes a month or so for the banks to determine the check is bad. Then they take back the funds they made available three or four weeks earlier. It seems there are two levels to checks clearing.

30

The book, *How To Become a Professional Con Artist *gives great descriptions of several common cons, not to mention an inside look into how con artists think. I think one of the more amazing facts in the book was how little time con artists spend in jail.

(The only thing I disliked about the book was how he called the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit a scam.)

31

“I’d actually say the honest behavior is to wait until the check clears.”

Theres nothing inherently dishonest about waiting for a check to clear, its the intention behind it in this case I was referring to, ie to keep all the cash rather than passing on the change, as a person might be tempted to do.

Otara

32

[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
According to my dear old dad – a copper for 35 years, the last 20 of it as a detective – we have to distinguish between swindle and confidence game. Anyone can be swindled – that’s what embezzlement is, basically, reporting one thing about the money but doing another. Quick-change artists, “investment” swindlers, and so on are all people who take advantage of unsuspecting people to rob them. A confidence artist (which is what “con” is all about) brings the mark into his or her confidence and specifically plays on the mark’s greed. If the mark displays little or no interest in getting very rich very quickly, the game ends and another mark is selected.

So to answer the OP’s question, yes, the victim of a confidence game is a crucial contributor to his or her own downfall.
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To add another perspective without disagreeing as such with your father:

"It’s called a confidence game. Why? Because you give me your confidence? No. Because I give you mine. " - Mike, from “House of Games” (a David Mamet film about con tricks on many levels).

To elaborate, Mike suggests the notion that confidence tricks works because the Mark wants to recipricate the trust the con artist is ostensibly showing. He or she does this in order to be a Good Person. Or, as he himself puts it: "Everybody gets something out of every transaction. " The quote takes place outside of a Western Union office where Mike has just demonstrated he could have walked away with an honest stranger’s money by playing not on greed, but on his willingness to want to help what appears to be a fellow marine.

I’m not sure how much credence can be lent on Hollywood movies as a proper cite, but it felt convincing to me.

33

Depends on the case.

The classic “timo de la estampita” has to exist in English as well, I just don’t know what it’s called. It’s similar to those “you’ve been chosen by the government of Nigeria to get $15000000 out of the country”, but with better grammar and acting. In that case, people who fall for it are trying to scam someone (be it the government or the ‘retard’ holding a ‘winning’ lottery ticket) - “he who plays with fire gets burned.”

Cases of someone visiting old folks who live alone, telling them they’re from Social Services, managing to obtain their signature, and then to steal from them - in that case the victim truly is one.

There’s a current case in Spain, where a pyramid (Forum Filatélico) which offered people enormous capital gains through stamp trading has fallen down. The people who lost their money there are yelling “con” and saying that the government has to give them the money back; the response of my accountant brother, whose blood pressure was breaking through the ceiling, was “oh sure, why use insured, certified, government-guaranteed investment firms and banks when Joe down the corner will get you 10x as much… only Joe’s shit isn’t guaranteed!” “Yes, it’s guaranteed to be shit.” “That’s the gospel truth, preach it Mom.”

34

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Conmen will cheat honest people out of money if the opportunity presents itself but they generally prefer to con victims who are themselves dishonest.

1 - It helps the conman’s self-image to think his victim was guilty.
2 - It helps distract the victim from his own vulnerability if he thinks he’s cheating somebody else.
3 - Victims who thought they were doing something dishonest are less likely to report the con to the police.
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Yeah, that pretty much covers it. One example I recall is the “money duplicator” – the con man claims to have a machine that will duplicate valuable portraits of dead presidents… but it’s slow, and he needs lots of money now, so he’s willing to sell it to the mark. When the mark figures out that it was rigged after the last bill that was seeded in the dispenser pops out, he realizes that he can’t exactly go to the police and tell them about his plan to engage in counterfeiting…

35

[QUOTE=Nava]
Depends on the case.

The classic “timo de la estampita” has to exist in English as well, I just don’t know what it’s called. It’s similar to those “you’ve been chosen by the government of Nigeria to get $15000000 out of the country”, but with better grammar and acting. In that case, people who fall for it are trying to scam someone (be it the government or the ‘retard’ holding a ‘winning’ lottery ticket) - “he who plays with fire gets burned.”

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Sounds a little like the Hispanic Lotto con mentioned here: http://www.fraudtech.bizland.com/lotto_scam.htm

I believe there’s another one where con #2 claims to be a sorta friend of #1, the ticket holder. #1 says he needs to hurry and cash out his winning lottery ticket (a ticket that has something like 5 of the 6 numbers; a few thousand bucks prize.) He’s willing to sell it to them for less than the full amount.

He makes some reason to leave for a moment, leaving the ticket behind. #2 pulls out a paper with the winning numbers and sees the ticket is actually for all 6 numbers, making the prize in the millions. #2 tells the mark they should buy the ticket for the agreed-upon earlier amount and split the millions. (Cause he’s not really that good a friend with that loser.)

Lots more interplay that eventually results in the mark handing over money and the cons disappearing. The mark is left holding a worthless lottery ticket.

36

[QUOTE=Triskadecamus]
It is much easier to swindle someone who is dishonest.

An honest man asks honest questions, and does not feel that getting something for nothing, or even close to it is a good idea. So, yes, as far as it goes, trying to get the best of it all sets you up for loosing your shirt. That doesn’t mean you can’t loose your shirt honestly, but you won’t be quite so easy a target for con men, if you aren’t trying to get more than a reasonable return for your effort, or money.

Tris
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No, this is false. Con-men don’t prey on dishonest dudes, or honest dudes. They prey upon the old, sick, loney and confused.

Last person I know that was scammed was a 92 yo women who got hit with the old “Lottery scam” = “But they were so nice and they seemed so careing”. It is worth noting that her son- who was pissed- only called her once a month, while the con-men called her and chatted with her a couple time a day, often for an hour or more.

They took her for around $100K, all of her savings. She was evicted from her nice retirement home where she lived with her friends. :frowning:

Con-men are not some noble breed trying to play games with the greedy, they are evil bastards who prey upon the old, weak, lonely and confused.

37

There’s no reason they can’t do both. Some con men are evil bastards who prey upon the old, weak, lonely and confused. Others are evil bastards who prey upon the greedy and dishonest. Some of those scams can only work if the mark is willing to screw someone else over.

38

[QUOTE=DeadlyAccurate]
The book, *How To Become a Professional Con Artist *gives great descriptions of several common cons, not to mention an inside look into how con artists think. I think one of the more amazing facts in the book was how little time con artists spend in jail.

(The only thing I disliked about the book was how he called the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit a scam.)
[/QUOTE]

Quite so. Most people don’t know that the poor woman who got burned by coffee had burns worse than 3rd-degree - she was burned down to the bone in some places. And that particular McDonald’s had been warned by regulators twice in the past that their coffee was dangerously hot - well in excess of 170 degrees F.

By and large, the real swindle is corporate lobbying to limit civil suits and spinning of the real story to confabulate valid complaints with scams.