It’s a bit difficult to objectively assess which is worse, for me. I have never in my life encountered a thief. Any hypothetical thief that I might encounter in my life might frighten me, but otherwise they would only be able to get away with a very small percentage of my wealth.
What bothers me about thieves is that the damage they would cause is about a magnitude greater than the money they would gain. Broken windows or door locks, cancelling credit cards, replacing items that they could only pawn for pennies on the dollar… It’s an affront to my sensibilities that the loss created by thievery far outweighs the gain by any party involved.
But I’ve never been robbed by a thief.
Conmen, on the other hand, are almost ubiquitous. From the car repair mechanics who invent problems, to the heating & plumbing contractors who fabricate flaws, to the Energy Therapist or the Chiropractor who bilks loved ones out of hundreds of dollars a month on unproven therapies… Politicians, corrupt cops, unscrupulous financial advisors, pastors, salesmen of many stripes…
At least a thief, if recognized as such, could quickly be arrested, jailed, and removed from society for a time.
The usual thieves aren’t arrested, jailed, and removed from society - they break into your car or your home, wreck your stuff and steal your stuff, and get away with it because it’s such a common crime.
I don’t think that’s a generally agreed upon definition.
The word “con-man” comes from “confidence man”. Basically, someone who defrauds you by gaining your confidence. I think the OP is considering anyone who takes your money by convincing you that they’re something they’re not applies.
It is in the trade, and among anyone who has anything to do with it. A con is a very specific criminal act, not a generalization of getting money from someone through force, coercion or even fraud.
Exactly. They get your trust, manipulate your understanding of a situation, deflect your suspicions and get you to willingly hand over the money in the belief you’re going to get some special deal. The deal being unethical or even illegal is part of the pitch - you basically can’t con someone with a legal gambit. There has to be the bait of getting the better of someone else for it to be a con. An absolutely honest person won’t fall for that angle; they’ll insist on turning in the money or wallet or ring or whatever, or not going along with a supposed gambling cheat or a playing a staged part in a cover con.
No con man ever “took” money from someone; it was given to them. If you’re being coerced or strong-armed out of it, even by the situation, it may be grift or several other kinds of theft, but it’s not (necessarily) a con.
One distinction I haven’t seen mentioned is that a thief will take what he needs, or what is readily available, while a con-man is actively planning and strategizing to get everything you have available. That’s why the effect of being conned is so much more devastating.
Also, someone mentioned the trauma and intrusiveness of being robbed. I’ve been there, and that is true, but how much more damaging is the con-man’s ability to make you feel at least partially at fault? How many above have openly agreed that “only the greedy” get conned? Cons are enormously under-reported for exactly this reason.
Making you doubt human nature is bad enough, but con-man often get away with what they’ve done because they make people doubt their own nature, or feel too stupid and chagrined to let anyone see their pain. So it’s not just financially devastating, but also isolating.
While I agree with your words (except the portion about chiropractors – seriously, why the hatred for them on this board?) I’m pretty sure the OP is specifically referring to 419-style con men – bastards who rip off lonely old grandmas with big fat pensions and stuff.
As for general thievery – well, it depends. I have no love whatsoever for random punks who steal stuff indiscriminately, whether or not they need it more than the “mark” does (I nearly had my contact lens case stolen many years ago – seriously, how much crack could the thief have bought with that???) and naturally, Identity Theft is an abomination to all that is pure and holy. But when it’s regarding something akin to “intellectual property”, or shoplifting from a major chain store – well, all I’ll attest to in public is that I can sort of see both sides. (What can I say, it’s how I grew up…)
(Naturally, of course, those days are long, long, long in the past…)
A thief will steal cash, jewelry, electronics, that sort of thing. Tangible stuff that you have on hand. It can be a wrench to lose it, but life goes on not all that differently without it (unless you keep critical quantities of cash in your home or wallet).
A con man can and will sucker a person out of the contents of their bank accounts and retirement funds, and even (as we found out in the latter part of the last decade) one’s house. A con man can ruin someone’s life.
Also, in the context of movies, I think con men are glamorized for the same reason as gangsters – that is to say, many people dream about living that kind of life, having the ability to get one over on other people instead of having people take advantage of them, in real life. As for thieves, that’s much less common, except for Ocean’s Eleven-style robbers who only steal from the super-rich, or desperate drug addicts who are portrayed as victims of society at large.
As an aside – one of my favorite indie films is The Best Thief in the World, the story of a young kid who breaks into people’s houses, but
he doesn’t actually steal anything – he’ll make himself a sandwich, or move the furniture around, to let the owner know that someone has been there, but nothing valuable’s actually missing. Cute film!
I’m reading comments like “thieves take your stuff; con artists take your trust” as an argument for con artists being worse than plain old thieves, but that’s why I find them to be preferable. A con in some ways requires my consent. Sure, I’ve been swindled and you lied to me, but there are still (at least) two participants in a con. Stealing my purse or breaking into my car to steal my radio doesn’t require consent. You just took from me and ran like a little fucking coward. Worse than a conman, worse than scum. And no, I don’t buy this business about petty thieves doing so because they’re hungry, while conmen are just greedy. They’re all greedy, but what makes you think a guy isn’t pulling a con out of desperation too? I know, greedy bankers derp derp, but let’s not create the false dichotomy of thieves being down on their luck and every conman being a cigar-smoking fat cat shitting on poor people for the hyucks. A lot of cons are on a much smaller scale, don’t get covered in the news, and are perpetuated by people who are broke.
Con men will leave you feeling worse than a thief because you are often at fault. They played on your greed and you know it. Even if you don’t have the wit to realize that, at least you realize you have been outsmarted. You feel stupid.
I don’t think one is worse than the other. They simply use different tools. In the case of the con man, you are the tool.
Well, most starving thieves – I’d say over 99%, but that’s only a guess – rob random people to feel their drug addiction, and we could all go 15 rounds over whether they deserve sympathy. But you’re correct – I’ve never heard of a real-life con man who only broke the law to feed his starving family, or even just himself.
How about “thieves take stuff from your house; con men take your house.”
Yeah, and if one participant is your 80 year old aunt who is good enough at managing her own affairs that fall in the normal range of stuff, but isn’t as good at smelling a con as she was 20 years ago, well, she gave her consent. Her bad.
We’re not talking about which is right. We’re talking about which is worse. How is conning grandma worse than stealing her purse? Because her trust was violated? What about her being in fear of physical danger because she was mugged or someone broke into her home?
The thief will take ‘everything you have available’, too. A con man will leave when the pressure to leave is upon him, as will a thief. The thief will take what he needs, and will keep taking, too. And, come back. Con-men don’t come back, usually.
Unfortunately, I’ve got my Maurer and Sutherland packed up in boxes. But I do want to make the point that there are cons, considered cons by con men, which do not depend on the victim being greedy. As I recall, a lot of these are short cons. Short-changing does not require the victim to be greedy, only to have basic human cognitive frailty.
Yes, the classic Maurer-style con man does take pride in only fleecing those with larceny in their hearts, and frankly it’s a lot safer to operate this way because people don’t want to admit they got fleeced trying to pull off something shady themselves, but con men need seed money for big store cons, and a lot of that is going to come from what has been characterized above as outright scams. Or selling drugs, you know.
I would also like to respond that what a con man takes from you is more personal somehow. There is a sense of violation that comes from being a victim of theft in any form. If I had to pick, I’d rather be the victim of a sneak thief than a mugger. But I once had a PlayStation 1 and 12 beers stolen from my apartment. What I lost was practically nothing, but I was gutpunched because the bastard had been in my fucking house. It would have disturbed me more deeply if I’d been there, though.