|
A confidence trick, confidence game, or con for short (also known as a scam) is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain. The confidence trickster, con man, scam artist or con artist often works with an accomplice called the shill, who tries to encourage the mark by pretending to believe the trickster. In a traditional con, the mark is encouraged to believe that they will obtain money dishonestly by cheating a third party, and is stunned to find that due to what appears to be an error in pulling off the scam they are the one who loses money; in more general use, the term con is used for any fraud in which the victim is tricked into losing money by false promises of gain.
Some confidence tricks exploit the greed and dishonesty of their victims; it has been said by confidence tricksters that it is impossible to con a completely honest man. Often, the mark tries to out-cheat the conmen, only to discover that they have been manipulated into this.
Sometimes conmen rely on naïve individuals who put their confidence in get-rich-quick schemes such as 'too good to be true' investments. It may take years for the wider community to discover that such 'investment' schemes are bogus, and usually it is too late as many people have lost their life savings in something they have been confident of investing in.
Origin of the term
Though dishonesty for financial gain had existed long before, the specific term "confidence man" was first coined in 1849 by the New York Herald to describe the deceptions of William Thompson. Thompson, dressed in genteel fashion, would approach wealthy New Yorkers and, after brief conversations, ask, "Have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?" The mark, placing "confidence" in Thompson's honesty, would lend him his watch, only to have Thompson never return. Thompson's arrest was a nationwide sensation, and the term "confidence man" passed into widespread use, including the title of Herman Melville's 1857 novel The Confidence-Man.
Well-known confidence tricks
- Three Card Monte, The Three-Card Trick, Follow The Lady or Find the Lady, which is (except for the props) essentially the same as the probably centuries-older shell game or thimblerig. The trickster shows three playing cards to the audience, one of which is a queen (the lady), then places the cards face-down, shuffles them around and invites the audience to bet on which one is the queen. At first the audience are skeptical, so the shill places a bet and the scammer allows them to win. This is sometimes enough to entice the audience to place bets, but the trickster uses sleight of hand to ensure that they always lose, unless the con man decides to let them win to lure them into betting even more. The 'mark' loses whenever the dealer chooses to make them lose.
- The Fiddle Game preys upon the greed inherent in most people. A pair of con men work together, one going in to an expensive restaurant in slightly shabby clothes, eating, and claiming to have left his wallet at home, which is nearby. As collateral, the con man leaves his only worldly possession, a fiddle (violin) he uses to make enough money for himself to live and eat. He leaves, and the second con man swoops in, offers an outrageously large amount (e.g., $50,000) for such a rare instrument, and then looks at his watch and runs off to an appointment, leaving behind his card for the mark to call him when the fiddle owner returns. The mark's greed comes into play when the "poor man" comes back, having gotten the money to pay his meal and ensure the return of his violin. The mark, "knowing" he has an offer on the table, then buys the violin from the fiddle player (who "reluctantly" sells it eventually, for say $5,000), and we are left with two con men $2,500 richer, and a maitre'd with a cheap wooden instrument.
- The Spanish Prisoner scam, which is essentially the same as the Nigerian money transfer fraud. The basic come-on involves entreating the mark to aid in retrieving some stolen money from its hiding place. The victim sometimes goes in figuring they can cheat the con artists out of their money: anyone trying this has already fallen for the essential con, by believing that the money is there to steal.
- The early-20th century favorite The Big Store, around which scam the plot of the film The Sting revolves. Big store scams are described in detail in David W. Maurer's The Big Con (see references), on which the film was loosely based. They often involved teams of dozens of con artists working together with elaborate sets and costumes.
- The Pigeon drop, also featured early in the film The Sting, wherein the 'mark' or 'pigeon' "assists" an elderly, weak or infirm stranger to keep their money safe for them. In the process, the stranger (actually a confidence trickster) "puts his money with" the pigeon's money, i.e., in an envelope, briefcase, or sack, which the pigeon is then entrusted with. The money is actually not put into the sack or envelope, but is switched for a bag full of newspaper, etc. The pigeon is enticed to "make off with" the con man's money through the greed element and various theatrics, but in actuality, the pigeon is fleeing from his own money, which the con man still has (or has handed off to an accomplice).
- The pyramid scheme (also known as a Ponzi scheme).
- Insurance fraud - the con artist tricks the mark into damaging the con artist's car, or injuring the con artist (in a manner that the con artist can exaggerate). The con artist fraudulently collects a large sum of money from the mark's insurance policy, even though they intentionally caused the accident.
- Pig-in-a-poke originating in the late Middle Ages, when meat was scarce, but apparently rats and cats were not. The con entails a sale of a "suckling pig", in a "poke" (bag). The bag ostensibly containing a live healthy little pig, but actually contains a cat (not particularly prized as a source of meat, and at any rate, quite unlikely to grow to be a large hog). If one "buys a pig in a poke" (a common colloquial expression in the English language, meaning "to be a sucker"), the person has bought something of lesser value than was assumed. This confidence trick is also the origin of the expressions: "Let the cat out of the bag" (meaning to reveal that which is secret), and "left holding the bag" (meaning to find oneself with nothing for their efforts, as the cat is quite likely to flee when the bag is opened).
- Some religious cults have been described by their critics as confidence tricks. It is alleged that their aim is to obtain money from their followers by deception.
- Pseudoscience and Snake oil. Some popular psychology confidence tricksters make money by falsely claiming to improve reading speed and comprehension using speed reading courses by fooling the consumer with inappropriate skimming and general knowledge tests. These popular psychology tricksters often employ popular assumptions about the brain and the cerebral hemispheres that are scientifically wrong, but attractive and easy to believe. Similar scams involve the use of brain machines to alter brain waves, and intelligence amplification through balancing the mind and body. See neurofeedback
- Psychic surgery is a con game in which the trickster uses sleight of hand to pretend to remove bits of malignant growths from the mark's body. A common form of medical fraud in underdeveloped countries, it imperils the victims, who may fail to seek competent medical attention.
Extra finesse
Many con men employ extra tricks to keep the victim from going to the police:
- Illegal money. A common ploy of investment scammers is to encourage the victim to use money that has been concealed from the tax authorities. The victim cannot go to the authorities without revealing that they have committed tax fraud.
- Illegal enterprise. Many swindles involve a minor element of crime or some other misdeed. The victim is made to think that they will gain money by helping fraudsters get huge sums out of a country (the classic Nigerian scam). The victim cannot go to the police without revealing that they planned to commit a crime themselves. Similar tricks can be played on people shopping for pirated software, illegal pornographic images, bootleg music, drugs, firearms or other forbidden or controlled goods.
- Embarrassing enterprise. If the victim loses a small sum only, they may be unwilling to contact the authorities if the circumstances are embarrassing, e.g. if they would look like an idiot or if their spouse would find out that they paid lots of money to access a website of (worthless or nonexisting) pornographic material.
Famous con artists
- Frank Abagnale, masqueraded as a pilot, doctor and professor
- Margita Bangova, beggar who earned upwards of CAD $2,500 per week
- Curtis Malinowski, collected millions of dollars from investors and home buyers with his con businesses.
- Lou Blonger, organized massive bunco ring in Denver in early 1900s
- Bernie Cornfeld ran what is to date the greatest scam in history, taking in just under $2.5 billion in what was later realized to be a Ponzi scheme.
- Tino De Angelis, who sold rights to $175 million in soybean oil stored in tanks, which was actually a thin layer of oil floating on water.
- Louis Enricht, US chemist who claimed to have made a substitute for gasoline
- Uri Geller, a famous but controversial alleged psychic and television personality
- Susanna Mildred Hill, US woman who fooled potential suitors
- Megan Ireland, Australian con artist and Lottery scammer
- Henri Lemoine, French diamond faker
- Victor Lustig, sold the Eiffel Tower
- Gregor MacGregor, Scottish conman who tried to attract investment and settlers for a non-existent country of Poyais
- George Parker, who sold New York monuments
- Charles Ponzi, the inventor of the pyramid scheme
- Christopher Skase
- Billie Sol Estes, who was paid to produce millions in quotas of cotton, which never existed. LBJ was implicated by Estes in taking payoffs to ignore the scam, which took place in Texas.
- Franz Tausend, German fake alchemist
- William Thompson
- Joseph Weil, a.k.a. the Yellow Kid, one of the inspirations for the Academy-award winning film The Sting.
- Kevin Trudeau, who claimed to be able to cure brain damage, increase reading speed in customers up to and beyond the rate of 10000 words per minute, and develop photographic memory.
- Howard Berg, with the same con as Trudeau
- Tony & Sharon Bonicci, a.k.a. Christie & McLean, Australian confidence artists, who rip off innocent elderly people for all their savings and possessions
- Raymond Price, British confidence artist who cons people out of money by telling them his car has broken down and he needs a train fare home; mentioned in the book Join Me[1]
- Robert Hendy-Freegard, British confidence artist who kidnapped people by telling them he was an MI5 agent and they were being hunted by terrorists, then took them on the run, conned them out of money and emotionally manipulated them; convicted in 2005[2]
Confidence tricks in the movies and television
Confidence tricks in paper literature
(very incomplete)
See also
Quotations
- In response to the question "Who's going to believe a con artist?" Ben Matlock of Matlock (television series) responded, "Everyone, if she's good."
References
- Blundell, Nigel. 1982. The World's Greatest Crooks and Conmen and other mischievous malefactors. Octopus Books, London. Reprint: 1984. ISBN 0-7064-2144-2
- Maurer, David W. 1940. The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man and the Confidence Game. New York: The Bobbs Merrill company. ISBN 0-3854-9538-2
- Maurer, David W. 1974. The American Confidence Man. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher. ISBN 0-3980-2974-1
External links
|
