Why and How people can be tricked: Confidence trick

Let's discuss "Confidence trick

A confidence trick or confidence game (also known as a bunko, con, flim flam, gaffle, grift, hustle, scam, scheme, or swindle) is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick

"Sometimes con men rely on naive individuals who put their confidence into 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. By the time they are discovered, many people may have lost their life savings to something in which they have been persuaded to invest."

Why and How people can be tricked: Confidence trick?

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"If anything can go wrong, it will." --- Murphy

 

heres a decent book that describes cons from the early 20th century. the conned people are unscrupulous themselves...

<b>you cant cheat an honest man</b>


http://www.amazon.com/Big-Con-Story-Confidence-Man/dp/0385495382

 

Ponzi scheme

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

"Hypothetical example

Suppose an advertisement is placed that promises extraordinary returns on an investment — for example, 20 percent on a 30-day contract. The objective is usually to deceive laymen who have no in-depth knowledge of finance or financial jargon. Verbal constructions that sound impressive but are essentially meaningless will be used to dazzle investors: terms such as "hedge futures trading," "high-yield investment programs," "offshore investment" might be used. The promoter will then proceed to sell stakes to investors — who are essentially victims of a confidence trick — by taking advantage of a lack of investor knowledge or competence. The Madoff scandal of 2008 showed that investors presumed to be sophisticated, such as hedge fund managers and international bankers, can also be tricked into joining a Ponzi scheme by a promoter with a well-established (if spurious) reputation for financial skill. Claims of a "proprietary" investment strategy, which must be kept secret to ensure competitive edge, may also be used to hide the nature of the scheme. Bernard Madoff, for example, only permitted one accounting firm, run by his brother-in-law, to perform audits on his hedge fund, claiming the need to keep his strategy secret."

 

From the same link above.

"Further reading

* Ball, J. Bowyer; Whaley, Barton (1982). Cheating and Deception (reprint 1991). New Brunswick (USA), London (UK): Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0-88738-868-X.
* Blundell, Nigel (1984) [1982]. The World's Greatest Crooks and Conmen and other mischievous malefactors. London: Octopus Books. ISBN 0-7064-2144-2.
* Dillon, Eamon (2008) [2008]. The Fraudsters: Sharks and Charlatans - How Con Artists Make Their Money. Merlin Publishing. ISBN 978-1-903582-82-4.
* Ford, Charles V. (1999) [1999]. Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!: The Psychology of Deceit. American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.. ISBN 978-0-880489-97-3.
* Henderson, Les (2000). Crimes of Persuasion: Schemes, scams, frauds. Coyote Ridge Publishing. ISBN 0-9687133-0-0.
* Kaminski, Marek M. (2004). Games Prisoners Play. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11721-7.
* Maurer, David W. (1999) [1940]. The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man and the Confidence Game (reprinted). New York: Bobbs Merrill / Anchor Books. ISBN 0-385-49538-2.
* Maurer, David W. (1974). The American Confidence Man. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher. ISBN 0-398-02974-1.
* Sutherland, Edwin Hardin (1937). The Professional Thief (reprint 1989). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-78051-1. "

 

"A con artist is a person who attempts to deceive a person or people (sometimes known as the "mark" or "griftee") by gaining his or her confidence for personal gain. There have been a number of con artist throughout history who have achieved notoriety through either the financial success or the sheer audacity of their cons. On www.greatestconartists.webs.com we have profiles and details of such men and women and the crimes they committed.

Frank Abagnale Lou Blonger Rober-Hendy-Freegard James Arthur Houge Victor Lustig Charles Ponzi Jefferson Randolph-Smith Eduardo de Valfierno Joseph Weil"

http://greatestconartists.webs.com/

 

Living Professors alive today who are now teaching diciples inside or outside the jails (same link)

"Living people

* Frank Abagnale Jr. (1948) — Reformed US check forger and impostor; his autobiography, Catch Me If You Can, was made into a movie[12]
* Matt the Knife (1981) — American-born card cheat and pickpocket who bilked casinos, corporations and at least one Mafia crime family.
* Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (1961) — Bavarian-born con artist who, for nearly two decades, claimed to be a member of the wealthy Rockefeller family.
* Robert Hendy-Freegard (1971) — Briton who kidnapped people by impersonating an MI5 agent and conned them out of money.[13]
* James Arthur Hogue (1959) — US impostor who most famously entered Princeton University by posing as a self-taught orphan[14]
* Clifford Irving (1930) — US writer, best known for a false "authorized autobiography" of Howard Hughes.
* Samuel Israel III (1959) — Ran the former fraudulent Bayou Hedge Fund Group; faked suicide.
* Bon Levi (1943) — Aka Ron the Con and Ronald Frederick. Arguably Australia's most notorious conman who tricked Australian and US citizens into investing in scam franchise businesses. He has been jailed both in Australia and the United States.
* Bernard Lawrence Madoff (1938) — American former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market who admitted running a world-record $65 billion Ponzi scheme. He started the Wall Street hedge fund firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960 and was its chairman until he was arrested in 2008 and charged with securities fraud. In March 2009 he pled guilty to 11 felonies.
* Lou Pearlman (1954) — US businessman and manager of boy bands, sentenced to 25 years for operating a Ponzi investment scheme
* Gert Postel (1958) — German postman who for decades pretended to be a medical doctor, worked for almost 2 years as a psychiatrist in a hospital in Saxony
* Casey Serin (1982) — Self-confessed mortgage fraudster who became the "poster child" of the housing bubble.
* Kevin Trudeau (1963) — US writer and billiards promoter, convicted of fraud and larceny in 1991, known for late-night infomercials and books about "Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About".
"

 

Did you see the auto sales scam on TV the other day? Here is how it goes.

The cons find an empty house in a decent neighborhood. They then run an ad to sell an almost new car at a rediculously low price using the empty house address. Then they rent the car from a rental agent and put it in the open garage of the empty house. The girl supposedly selling the car is in the garage with the car. A baby monitor is with her incase she needs to change the subject with the marks.

As the marks show up to look at the car, they are free to look it over in the garage. Since a price is a steal, the marks give the girl a cash deposit of a few hundred and get a hand written receipt. They are told to come back in a few hours to pick up the car. If any start asking probing questions the baby monitor goes off or the cell phone rings allowing the sales girl to get out of the immediate conversation.

After a day of getting marks to fork over hundreds each as a deposit, the cons leave before pickup time and are no where to be found when all the purchasers who paid a deposit show up to pick up the car.

The marks end up with nothing but a phony deposit receipt and no way to trace the cons or find out who they are.

This is really slick so don't fall for it if you are looking for a car.

 

A big LIE indeed!

 

Don't worry. I'm only looking for a wife! Deposit is fine with me!

 

Don't you mean you are looking for a girl friend? No one in their right mind goes looking for a wife. Well, unless she is as rich and attractive as someone like Angelina Jolie.