Talk:Confidence trick

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[edit] Long Introduction?

The introduction before the TOC seems to be very long. I know I've seen a tag for this, but I don't know it off hand. Ghostwo 06:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cialdini

Some of the work of Robert Cialdini should be incoporated into the article to highlight the pschlogical factors that lead to many of these types of cons being successful.

[edit] A Really Bad Article

This is a really bad article. It should be stricken in its entirety and another article written, by someone who knows confidence tricks and knows how to write logically and grammatically.

^^^My thoughts exactly. Whoever wrote the bulk of this article needs to go back to 4th grade and pick up where they left off learning English. (Also---Ocean's 11, The Italian Job, etc. are not about con games. A robbery is not a con game.)

[edit] Online Casino Scam

Yes the confidence scam related to online casinos really does work. Check out www.casinoflaw.com if you don't believe me. I signed up for two accounts for 200 each. The system claims that if you play roulette and bet on the dozens after L, M, or H (L,M and H refers to each of the groups of dozens on the roulette wheel i.e. L = 1-12 M = 13-24 and etc.) doesn't appear for five spins you can't lose as long as you follow the betting list the site provides. The list consists of eleven bet amounts which progressively increase. The idea is that if you win any of your eleven bets you will net between $1 to $3. Point being that the chance of any of the groups of dozens not coming out more than 16 times in a row is unlikely (i.e. 5 spins no L + 11 spins betting progressive amounts = 16 spins in which one you are guaranteed to hit do to a flaw in the casinos programming and the fact that the chances of one group of dozens not coming out 16 times in a row is 1/535. This scam does not work as I can tell you from trying it myself it is quite common for any one dozen to not come out for 16spins.

New post

Care needs to be taken with the list of "Famous convicted and alleged con artists". The reference to Howard Berg points to an unrelated individual with the same name. Having Matthew Lesko in a list of famous grifters is stretching the description a bit much. He belongs in this list no more than any other guy selling questionable products on midnight television. I'm changing both of these now. Sphivo 12:14, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

              Uri Geller Is not a con artist. He is a Performer, like David Copperfield, or Chriss Angel.

---

Family member. the con artist might be a family member of the mark.And the mark would not want to hurt said con artist by going to the police


Seems really unlikely to me.... ---


Bias

The following seems to be irrelevant and biased.

"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 "

Seems like someone is giving their hobby horse a whipping. It's just about as relevant as the following:-

The pharmaceutical con

Pharamaceutical companies often sell drugs at massive profit to consumers desperate to recuperate from fatal and chronic illnesses, despite some of these drugs demonstrating less than 50% efficacy in randomised double blind studies. At the same time, the pharmaceuticals fund 'independent' studies that dismiss the efficacy of naturally occurring compounds (where patent claim cannot be made).

Yours sincerely - --~~CS~~


We should now consider the distinction between a confidence trick and fraud. Is there one? Should we have two articles? Which does Ponzi belong to? What about people like Robert Maxwell? -- The Anome 09:27, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Confidence game is essentially a subset of fraud and I there is no clear-cut border between them. One definition I have heard about is that in confidence game, the culprit takes people in their "confidence", offering them "unique opportunity" or "deal they should not miss" and use money they give for his own purposes. The trick is based either on the mark's dishonesty or gullibility. In other forms of fraud like embezzlement, people who are involved with it, usually know exactly what they are doing and they are often financiers, accountants and CEOs who need not to convince anyone. I am sure this explanation breaks down in some level. - Skysmith 10:36, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Also, "The Color of Money", the sequel to "The Hustler".


Confidence tricks in general exploit the inherent 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.

This really seems to be the Hollywood version of con games, which I don't think the article is about (though in fact it's not clear). Real life cheatin' generally isn't quite so romantic. - toh 23:57, 2004 Dec 23 (UTC)

No, this is a very common form of scam. -- The Anome 13:37, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps someone could add something about the differences between short (i.e. short term, low gain cons, such as "follow the lady") and long cons (i.e. long term, typically more elaborate, higher gain cons). I would but my knowledge of the topic is rather limited.

[edit] clear it up...

The pigeon drop scam is poorly written and can be interpreted in a number of ways. Can someone who knows the scam well, write a more clear description of the scam?

[edit] More information please

The description of the "Big Store" scam could use a little more detail - for example, it would be nice if it mentioned in passing what a "Big Store" scam actually is, instead of merely referring us to a movie and a book to which we may not actually have any access.


Do fake university degrees, diplomas, or listings in worthless who-is-who directories count as fraud, cons, scams, or something else? (1) If the receiver believes in the diploma? (2) If the receiver knows the diploma is fake but uses it fraudulently, e.g. to apply for a job for which they are not qualified? See for example the Académie Parisienne des Inventeurs. --LA2 July 2, 2005 01:42 (UTC)


I do not understand why Wikipedia would be considered as a famous or alleged con (see "wikipedia, claims that a community opinion is a 'free encyclopedia'"). I think a con involves an element of intent to obtain financial gain.

[edit] Pigeon drop inconsistency

The Pigeon Drop section in this article does not match up with the separate article (Pigeon drop); which one is correct? --Nibble 04:31, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Added "Stolen Cheques" due to personal experience

I run a website and recently we played along with the "Stolen Cheque" guys after they bombarded our email server with their spam. We wanted to see how it worked. Upon receiving the cheques, we notified the affected businesses, providing all the details we had (bank accounts, phone numbers, etc) and returned the cheques. Both companies, AT&T and Toronto Dominion Insurance (TDI) told us this is very common, and usually results form cheques actually issued, such as to pay a corporate utility bill, and stolen at the point of delivery, in the case of the AT&T cheque it was stolen from the Ontario Hydro mail room. The total of the 2 cheques was over $60,000.00. Mattwilkins 21:27, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Another aphorism

"You can't cheat an honest man" is a good principle. Another relevant aphorism, regarding poker, but perhaps with relevance to this topic, is: "Look around the table, and try to spot the sucker. If you can't, it's you." (Of course, some scams exploit even this, by providing a confederate who appears to the mark to be the sucker.) -- The Anome 13:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Cat out of the bag

I am 99 percent certain the etymology of this comes from a cat o'nine tails... You know you're in trouble when the "cat" is out of the bag...

[edit] Travel Scam?

This article redirects from Travel Scam but I see no mention of it. Sophistifunk 05:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I have the same problem, why does it redirect if there is absolutely nothing on the subject???

[edit] Job Scam

A scam that is very common in Brazil is a job offer with very high wages and benefits, but where the candidates are supposed to accomplish some succesful deals in order to get the position. Out of desperation, the candidates end by selling the services/goods to family and friends, oftend funding themselves the transaction. More often than not the services/goods are highly overpriced and impossible to sell otherwise. If one of the candidates, by chance, meets his/her quota, the con artits will just tell that "they had more candidates than they expected and now they are forced to raise the bar, and s/he will be offered the position if s/he sells five more units." The proccess go on until the mark runs out of money or hope.

[edit] Lookie-lou

Not sure of the exact spelling, but is the name of the con used in Ocean's 12 involving Tess?

[edit] line

The space in front of the line starting "Finding a con artist is relatively hard" makes it run all on one line and be inside a box. Is it intended to be that way? Bubba73 (talk), 05:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flim flam

Flim flam links to this article, but Flim flam is not mentioned anywhere in the article. If flim flam is another name for confidence trick, I think it should be mentioned near the top. Bubba73 (talk), 05:54, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I definately think Scientology is a proven Con of the religious sort. Discussion?

[edit] Movie, books, et cetera lists

I am of the opinion that it would be better to trim this list down to only fictional works primarily about con-men, if we are to keep it at all. Also, the items missing abstracts should have them. Are others of accord? —Casey J. Morris 04:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coin collecting scam

"Coin collecting scamis a scam that preys on unexperianced coin collecters. The con man convinses the mark that a low priced collection of jewlery is worth a greater amount. The coin collecter, that is clearly unexperianced at coin collecting buys the jewlery thinking its valuable when its really not."

I do not understand this paragraph? Is the coin collector buying jewlery, or coins? Why would a coin collector buy jewlery? Soapy 05:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Credit card theft by computer proxy

This section should be either rewritten or removed entirely.

I think it was written as a joke. Even if you over-looking the spelling, it is not logical. Why would someone use a credit card to buy a magazine? The author said the swindler is "long gone," indicating that he leaves. Would it not make better sense to to hold on file, while the computer is being "fixed," then taking off with the computer as well? Soapy 22:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation for "You can't cheat an honest man"

Terry Pratchett uses it in his book "Going Postal"... there's also a movie written by W.C. Fields, entitled "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man". Dunno how to add a citation, otherwise I would do so. --AnitraSmith 19:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Add: Confidence Trick by Police

I have tried to add, to the examples: "In California, many police departments send out computer-generated red light camera "tickets" that have not been filed with the Superior Court, thus have no legal weight and can be ignored. The intent is to bluff the registered owner into contacting a website, or writing back, and revealing the name, address and driver's license number of the person who was driving the car. The website will even let you pay the ticket via credit card. Fake ticket"

It has been removed twice, by WRS and McKay. If they, or anyone else here would like to participate in a discussion of the suitability of the entry, please join in, in the discussion section of "Phishing," under the heading "Phishing by the Police."--Einsteininmyownmind 17:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More on Property Scams

The biggest scams I have heard of involve property and real estate and land. It would be great to highlight some of these in the article. Buying property off plan can net fraudster property developers millions of dollars in one hit without much legal recourse. New world areas seem to be ripe with these type of scams - places like Morocco, Brazil and Thailand. This is because non scamming real estate developers can make fantastic returns in these areas. I have linked in a site which warns users of the latest scams doing the rounds at *Totally Property. I look forward to proposing some more changes to this article soon.

This is interesting stuff. BUT do you not think that publicising these types of scams gives confidence tricksters ideas??? I wonder how many con men check wikipedia for a new scam?

    • There are no "new" scams, just new versions of the old ones...writing about these scams helps possible victims as well. Soapy 04:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Illegal Shielding

I see that one defensive move is to make confrontation from the mark illegal. Wiki might affect someone's decisions by elaborating their options. For example, should someone having bought a bricked TV that was stolen bother going to the authorities? Local law varies, of course. --Falos 03:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Impersonation

A major category of scam seems to be missing. I can't recall the exact details now, but I've heard of people going around impersonating government officials of one sort or another (tax agents, etc.) and selling non-existent 'licenses' or otherwise collecting fees under the guise of government authority. Wouldn't this qualify as a 'confidence trick' since they have to convince the victims that they need to pay this fee? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.31.91.61 (talk)

[edit] "Bad Literary Agent"

I'm sure this isn't a real confidence trick, just a joke from humorist John Hodgman's book "The Areas of My Expertise". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lordpook (talkcontribs) 12:56, 30 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Grapefruit Seed Extract - is this really a confidence trick?

While the information on grapefruit seed extract might usefully form part of an article on alternative medicine, it doesn't seem to have a lot to do with confidence tricks. Would anybody miss this section if it were removed?

NegativeCharlie 10:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I would remove it. People seem to add things to this article that they consider ripoffs, but that aren't really cons at all. --Galaxiaad 10:45, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Well... alright. Anyways, it is still a consumer fraud and a ripoff. --Pillar Of Coolness 03:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] what!? has anyone here ever heard of "short-changing"?

the most common form (i would imagine) of confidence tricks is short-changing (a.k.a quick-changing). it seems odd that this is not mentioned here, or that it doesn't have it's own aricle entry. someone listed a very petty version of it in the listed cons, but that is nowhere sufficient. the only idea i can think of is that somebody (administrator perhaps), wouldn't allow this in the article because it would encourage people to try it, because of it's relative ease to commit. anyone? Helio462