THE CONS
SEE THE SCAMS
1 The Confidence Man
PURPOSES
WHY STUDY HUMAN BEHAVIOR?
We learn through formal education – never enough, and the more the better. Not generally appreciated, but not to be neglected is that we also learn through experience, generally slowly, even imperceptibly. By repeatedly experiencing exposure to specific behaviors, in varied contexts, we learn to assemble, and hopefully to see, these behaviors in a new, deep, enduring, multifaceted way.
Learning to see specific behaviors nurtures our capacities to develop a recognition of concepts related to these behaviors. This is true even for common concepts that are incompletely formed in our minds.
This pathway to learning through experience begins with any type of experience – a friend’s comment, a movie, a group of quarreling politicians, a book, a war, being with someone beloved. For example, topics considered in a work of history or biography far from one’s daily concerns might have mental links bringing one gradually, at a later time, to understand common conflicts with family members or business associates in an expanded form and to manage the conflicts with more success.
This pathway, weaving through varied contexts, aids us gradually to improve recognition of behaviors one does not see. As we learn to see vital behaviors previously unrecognized, these unseen behaviors come into our conscious consideration, including hazardous unseen tricks and tactics of adversaries.
These two websites provide exposure to commonly unrecognized behaviors and their associated conceptual fields over time, enabling one to understand human behavior and to learn to read human behavior.
The world of the con is confusing from the outset. A brief clarification of terminology is a good place to begin.
Cons:
Confidence man, con man, con, sociopath, psychopath and other names are very similar and might be used.
“Con” might refer either to the person or to his specific exploitative actions.
The Confidence Man.
The actions making up a con are parts of everyday life that are hidden and unnoticed due to the purposeful tactics of the con. Victims experience behavior that seems ordinary and inconsequential, especially the components clustering around trust (confidence) in the intent of another person. We have confidence (trust) that the meaning of the communications of another person indicate his intentions.
However, it is also true that this confidence in his meaning creates an opportunity for the other person to vary (“slightly”) his intentions and actions as desired, to favorably improve his chances to achieve his personal wishes and goals, even if at the expense of others.
Using “confidence man” to describe such a swindler began in mid-nineteenth century America. The term is usually ascribed to a description in the New York Herald of a swindler by the name of Thompson in 1849. From the beginning the confidence man has occupied a special role in the world of crime, a role of ambiguity. This is due to the perception that he did not steal, but was given the money by the victim, apparently voluntarily, due to the victim’s confidence in the benevolent intentions of the con artist.
This characterization has remained so even while recognizing the con’s slick, seductive manner of approach to the “mark” (victim), the extensive organization of his plan, his deceptive behavior when interacting with the mark, and the limited nature of the information given to the victim. Moreover, in the early days of “the big con”, victims knew that the activity generating the money was dishonest.
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In early July 1849, the New York Herald, then the most profitable and most widely circulated newspaper in the United States, published in its Police Intelligence column a series of four unsigned short reports about the arrest of a swindler, purportedly known as the “Confidence Man.” With the exception of one piece, the articles were published in the internal pages of the paper. The Herald also published a provocative editorial about the Confidence Man, comparing him to the “real” (or “true”) confidence men – Wall Street “financiers.” The swindler, Samuel Thompson, was a “graduate of the college at Sing Sing” and used a highly distilled version of an old trick: he expressly asked his victims to place confidence in him by lending him money or a watch. TheHerald did not treat the story as an important one. During July 1849, the Heraldallocated considerably more space to reports about a few other swindlers, the whereabouts of Father Matthew, and general matters, such as political and foreign affairs, the cholera outbreak in New York, the movements of major steamboats, and theater reviews. The articles about the Confidence Man, however, drew considerable attention and had an immediate impact on journalism, literature, law, and culture. The Herald redefined swindling and introduced the modern analysis of scamming. The Herald is credited for coining the term “confidence man” and the original report about the arrest of Thompson is still frequently cited.
The popular account of the term “confidence man,” however, is too simplistic. It is unclear why Thompson’s story was so influential leaving us with the phrases “confidence game,” “confidence man” and “con man.” Thompson did not contribute to his trade any new scheme nor did he develop one. We show that he was a clumsy burglar and unsophisticated swindler. Many, however, mistakenly interpreted Thompson’s lack of sophistication and boldness as genius. We argue that the popularity of the story demonstrates and emphasizes a broad misunderstanding of the complexity of scamming.
We utilize the story of the Confidence Man in its historical context to explain the nature of scams as the exploitation of predictable imperfect decisions. We specifically focus on bounded rationality and other human imperfections of both scammers and their victims, as well as the ways scammers utilize time, information, and institutional complexity to advance their schemes.
Jean Braucher and Barak Orback (2015). “Scamming: The Misunderstood Confidence Man,” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities: Vol. 27: Iss. 2, Article 2. pp. 250-252.
As one becomes familiar with the structure of cons, it is essential to step back and recognize how complex human interactions are, making the detection of a con a more formidable enterprise than suggested on the printed page.
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The many variants of the con are another source of protection for con artists because people in everyday life cannot be expected to know and understand the features and techniques of all these possibilities – although after being scammed a victim will be told “you should have known.”
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Scamming -- also known as the confidence game, diddling, conning, and swindling – loosely refers to schemes where the confidence man (the “con man”) persuades the victim (the “mark”) to trust him with her money using persuasion tricks that may include false or misleading promises. The game has evolved considerably over time and continues through good and bad times on both a small and large scale. The confidence game has many forms and variants. Familiar examples include telemarketing fraud, fraudulent , pyramid and Ponzi schemes, work-from-home schemes, quack medicines, home repair scams, and Nigerian scams. As the examples illustrate, scams often, though not always, exploit the marks’ unrealistic hopes for profit, cure, and inexpensive quality. The concept of scamming cannot be precisely defined and outlawed. It is essentially a form of opportunism, “self-interest seeking with guile.” The voluntary participation of the victims and the challenges associated with identifying scamming often result in skepticism toward the plausibility of scams and demands that individuals would be responsible for the choices they make.
Jean Braucher and Barak Orback (2015). “Scamming: The Misunderstood Confidence Man,” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities: Vol. 27: Iss. 2, Article 2. pp. 249-250.
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Second, we describe the use of time in scams. Scammers often use time to sort the population and trap vulnerable individuals. Common instruments used for this purpose are the utilization of (1) actual or perceived time pressure, (2) uncertainty due to changes of circumstances (such as booms, busts, and volatile conditions), and (3) cognitive impairments resulting from aging.
Jean Braucher and Barak Orback (2015). “Scamming: The Misunderstood Confidence Man,” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities: Vol. 27: Iss. 2, Article 2. p. 252.
The topic of The Big Con became very popular due to a 1973 film that opened eyes to the risky, somewhat glamorous activities of those active in this world – The Sting. It portrays two grifters as they lure a crime boss with bait that is temptation which this gambler won’t resist.
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