THE CONS
SEE THE SCAMS
3 Everyone Can Be Conned
Since 1940, either more ambiguous large operations (e.g., various financial swindles) or the increasingly mainstream, subtle varieties of the big con have replaced the big con itself.
Contrary to the near-universal belief that “I cannot be conned”, everyone can be conned, and has been conned, in some form – because there are so many unrecognized forms of the con. The elements and structure of the con, coupled with continuous subtle changes while retaining the basic structure, make it very likely to succeed. One element that contributes to this likelihood for success is the confidence of the potential victim in his own invulnerability to a con. Confident assertions build blind victims.
“I’ve never been conned by anyone. You should be embarrassed – that scam was obvious.” Scams are “obvious” to observers once the scam is exposed because the isolation of a clear behavior sequence makes its outcome seem obvious. Forgotten by the observer is that the basic behavior sequence has an almost endless number of variants, causing the victim to fail to recognize a scam hidden in the incalculable numbers of possible behavior sequence variants.
Anyone can be fooled, has been fooled, and will be fooled. We are more likely to be fooled when our confidence rides high.
VOICES
Paper Clips:
Some of the brain wave recordings were indeed odd, but we hadn’t gathered them from aliens and we certainly hadn’t made them up. We had obtained them from a class of individuals found in every race, culture, society, and walk of life. Everybody has met these people, been deceived and manipulated by them, and forced to live with or repair the damage they have wrought. These often charming – but always deadly -- individuals have a clinical name: psychopaths. Their hallmark is a stunning lack of conscience; their game is self-gratification at the other person’s expense. Many spend time in prison, but many do not. All take far more than they give.
Robert D. Hare, Ph.D. (1993). Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. New York: The Guilford Press, p. 1.
Con artists affect everyone’s lives, although most victims are unaware of this – largely because both con artists and confidence games come in many forms and are neither discussed nor recognized by the general public. The phases of events associated with many cons gradually become more recognizable after learning through experience.
VOICES
Film clips:
Anyone can be “conned” by a “con artist”. Professionals who study con artists admit that they have been fooled. Of course, this raises an obvious question: why do con men continue to be successful?
VOICES
Paper Clips:
People who read of con touches in the newspaper are often wont to remark: “That bird must be stupid to fall for a game like that. Why, anybody should know better than to do what he did. . . .” In other words, there is a widespread feeling among legitimate folk that anyone who is the victim of a confidence game is a numskull.
But it should not be assumed that the victims of confidence games are all blockheads. Very much to the contrary, the higher a mark’s intelligence, the quicker he sees through the deal directly to his own advantage. To expect a mark to enter into a con game, take the bait, and then, by sheer reason, analyze the situation and see it as a swindle, is simply asking too much. The mark is thrown into an unreal world which very closely resembles real life; like the spectator regarding the life groups in a museum of natural history, he cannot tell where the real scene merges into the background. Hence, it should be no reflection upon a man’s intelligence to be swindled. In fact, highly intelligent marks, even though they may tax the ingenuity of the con men, respond best to the proper type of play. They see through the deal which is presented, analyze it, and strike the lure like a flash; most con men feel that it is sport of a high order to play them successfully to the gaff. It is not intelligence but integrity which determines whether or not a man is a good mark.
David W. Maurer (1940). The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. New York: Anchor Books, pp.103-104.
Even knowledge about how to conduct a particular type of con game does not necessarily protect a con artist from being conned himself in another circumstance with the same structure. A con artist is also a potential victim, like everyone else. At a given time, he might be willing to put his confidence in another person or another activity that promises to deliver to him whatever his wish for the future might be – most commonly, money, and those running games for money are well prepared to keep some of whatever the player brings.
VOICES
Film Clip:
VITAL CONCEPT