I started watching the movie “Wolf of Wall Street” and I couldn’t finish it. The reason is that watching the protagonist blatantly rob people of their life savings and then blow all the money frivolously was hard to stomach.
Essentially, DiCaprio’s character is a straight up criminal. He cons people into purchasing “investments” in worthless stocks, collecting a huge chunk in fees off of each transaction. He at first can only convince the extremely gullible, running a shady looking operation, but later buys all the trappings of a successful and legitimate seeming investment firm. It isn’t only gullible people who would be fooled, later in the movie, the firm looks legitimate and part of the scam is they try to get people to invest in blue chip stocks originally. Then, later, after those people have made some money on a blue chip investment, they call them up and tell them they have a “big tip” in some “up and coming” worthless penny stock and get them to make an investment.
A large number of people would be fooled by a scam like this - and they were in reality. Similar firms have existed and exist today.
A thief, on the other hand - by that I mean a criminal who breaks into places when no one is there and steals their stuff - at least is honest about what he does. If someone sees a thief, they can legally shoot them in many states - not so a con man. You can buy insurance against thievery, and the premiums are reasonable. That disclaimer about “past performance and future results” means you don’t get insurance against a con man. Also, the coke and hookers you see in the movie “Wolf” burn up most of the money, such that the defrauded investors will have no recourse.
Even a thief who carries a gun and is willing to shoot if cornered feels more respectable than a con man.
Some con men run schemes that fool virtually everyone. Such as the “mortgage backed securities” scam, where sophisticated math that almost no one can read backed up the scam. The guys who ran that scam are still in business and none of them were jailed.
I think con men just seem so much more sophisticated. And there is something a little different about the con man because people are giving him their money. I think deep down most people think people who are conned kind of deserve it for being greedy or stupid; there’s a little more blame the victim. Not to say that I agree, I think they are equally egregious.
People who steal out of desperation and use what they gain in order to live are far, far more honorable than those who want for nothing, cheat people, and use what they gain in order to live frivolously.
I would rather give a person who broke into my apartment and stole my computer a second chance, than a con-man who pretended to do business with me.
Lock the con-man up forever, they’re the most unfeeling and unethical and greedy people on the planet.
A thief can feel guilty, a con-man feels nothing but joy from making people suffer.
A couple of years ago I bought a copy of The Big Con, a great book about confidence schemes that was written in 1940 and inspired the movie The Sting.
The (obviously dated) schemes were all very sophisticated and shared several common traits: people were always fleeced out of town, they always were driven by their own greed, they often went in several times, and most importantly, they never knew they were conned, even afterwards.
It was intriguing how all of the schemes involved building an entire world around one person, finely tuned to their personality, in order to steal their money.
I enjoyed the book but never finished it. Every time I read a few chapters I felt a weird feeling that could be described as a heightened cynical distrust in humanity, and I didn’t enjoy that sensation. Ugh.
Still, it is a very good book if you are interested in true skilled confidence men in action.
I knew a (small time) con man. Of course I didn’t know what he was when I met him but I caught on and stayed away.
I think a con man is worse because from knowing this guy, a huge part of the thrill for them is getting over on somebody. If he had to choose between making a legitimate $5000 vs conning somebody for $1000 for the same amount of work, he’d take the con.
The sad thing is, he was very talented employee, he could have made more money working a legitimate job. Of course he never kept any job too long because being what he was, he ripped off his employers as well.
I think the “Old Smokey” lines above were apt. A con man is a false-hearted lover, in that they manipulate their victim’s emotions rather than just impersonally taking their stuff.
I think both the person who steals through physical force and the person who steals through deception are scum. But at least the person who steals through deception is not going to physically harm you. Maybe the unarmed burglar is less scary than the con man, but even people whose homes have been broken into while they were away can end up feeling terrified and violated. And if you’re talking about a thief with a gun, or someone who holds people at gunpoint, ties them up, or locks them behind a door in order to steal, then that person can cause serious trauma beyond just the absence of money.
I’ve read a lot of books about con men, and that type of betrayal runs deep. But the victims (at least the ones in the books I’ve read, some of which were written by people who lost their life savings), usually come to realized that they can survive without their money, and that was most important to them was not taken from them. Victims of thieves, particularly those who physically threaten in some way, are far less likely to be philosophical about the experience.
Ultimately, it’s up to the individual victim to determine their particular attitude. But for me personally, I’d rather have the money in my investment account disappear one day than be confronted by a gun-toting mugger, or even one without a gun.
I had much the same sort of reaction. In my mind the only difference really being drawn here is the methodology used to steal. I’m reminded of the line by Hans Gruber in Die Hard:
He was essentially running a massive con, which included killing dozens of people, destroying millions in property, and faking his own death, but he was ultimately just a thief.
Still, I think there is some distinction to be made that someone who burglarizes a house or steals at gun point is being direct about it, where a con-man has a level of dishonesty to it. In that regard, some how the conning seems worse. Sort of like it seems worse to find out your spouse is cheating on you by coming across clues than them just up and telling you they’re leaving you for someone else. It seems honesty and directness have that way of being more dignified in an undignified action.
I think fraudsters are worse, (to use a gender-neutral term.)
A thief steals from a person.
A fraudster steals all of society’s faith in humanity, their hope, their willingness to believe, and the hope that innocent people would be able to be trusted or get the investment they need to develop their idea. In response to fraudsters, laws and regulations have become stricter, making it more troublesome to be an honest tradie or businessperson. They are in every way worse than humble thieves.
I can tell the “broker” that I am not going to trade my blue-chips for any penny stocks, thank you. Now I know to take my business elsewhere.
Leaving a note on the door(s), windows, and all other entry points requesting that thieves ply their trade elsewhere is not the same.
Every con comes down to the victim wanting to score a bit more than is normally available.
And some cons (the surreptitious substitution of carefully cut newsprint for cash, for instance) does tell the mark that they have been had.
For those too lazy to read: the movie “Flim Flan Man” follows an aging hustler and his penny-ante scams. In the movie, all cons work ONLY if the mark is greedy - had the mark decided to NOT make a quick fortune, they would not have been victims.
There are cons, however, that prey on simple ignorance or naiveté (e.g. against the elderly). So it’s not as if it always requires the mark to also be looking to get something for nothing.
The con artist uses every tool in his bag in order to present a set of circumstances where a person will give him their money. The mark is just that, a target—a very carefully chosen target. If a con artist has singled me out and cleverly tuned their attack to my weaknesses, I would be toast. Greed probably is very helpful but not necessary for their goals.
I’m certain that most people feel that they would never fall for a scheme, that it wouldn’t pass the sniff test, that “if it seems too good to be true then it is”, but this is assuming they are sitting down studying the facts in black and white with no rush and no emotions.
As an example of how simple deception can be, see how quick change artists do their work. How many cashiers think they would never fall for such a trick? That guy is smooth, and so are the others.
Taking money under false pretenses isn’t a con. Scam, yes, or grift, or just plain theft, but “con” involves manipulation of the mark beyond simple misrepresentation.
I don’t care for the so-called “honesty” of the plain old thief over a con-man; both are equally bad in my opinion. A thief takes what does not belong to him (that someone else worked hard to get) - that is inexcusable. A con-man lies and takes what does not belong to him; that is also inexcusable.