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

History

The first known usage of the term "confidence man" was in 1849; it was used by the press during the trial of William Thompson. Thompson chatted with strangers until he asked if they had the confidence to lend him their watches, whereupon he would walk off with the watch; he was captured when a victim recognized him on the street.^[1]

Vulnerability to confidence tricks

Persons of any level of intelligence are vulnerable to deception by experienced con artists. Confidence tricks exploit human weaknesses like greed, dishonesty, vanity, but also virtues like honesty, compassion, or a naïve expectation of good faith on the part of the con artist.

Just as there is no typical profile for swindlers, neither is there one for their victims. Virtually anyone can fall prey to fraudulent crimes. ? Certainly victims of high-yield investment frauds may possess a level of greed which exceeds their caution as well as a willingness to believe what they want to believe. However, not all fraud victims are greedy, risk-taking, self-deceptive individuals looking to make a quick dollar. Nor are all fraud victims naive, uneducated, or elderly.^[2]

Confidence tricksters often rely on the greed and dishonesty of the mark, who may attempt to out-cheat the con artist, only to discover that he or she has been manipulated into losing from the very beginning. This is such a general principle in confidence tricks that there is a saying among con men that "you can't cheat an honest man."^[3]

Nevertheless, some tricks depend on the honesty of the victim. In a common scam, as part of an apparently legitimate transaction, the victim is sent a worthless check, which the victim then deposits. The victim is then urged to forward the apparent value of the check to the trickster as cash, possibly keeping a small portion of the money as a commission, which they may do before discovering the check bounces. Another fashionable scenario (as of 2006) has the victim recruited as a "financial agent" to collect "business debts". Paper checks are not always involved: funds may be transferred electronically from another victim.

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

The confidence trickster often works with one or more accomplices called shills, who help manipulate the mark into accepting the con man's plan. In a traditional confidence trick, the mark is led to believe that he will be able to win money or some other prize by doing some task. The accomplices may pretend to be random strangers who have benefited from successfully performing the task.

Notable con artists

Born in the 18th century

• Gregor MacGregor (1786–1845) ? Scottish conman who tried to attract investment and settlers for a non-existent country of Poyais^[4]

Born or active in the 19th century

• Helga de la Brache (1817-1885)
• William Thompson (active in 1840–1849) ? US criminal whose deceptions caused the term confidence man to be coined^[5]
• Lou Blonger (1849–1924) ? organized massive ring of con men in Denver in early 1900s^[6]

• Soapy Smith (1860–1898) — confidence gang boss, who operated in Denver, Colorado; Creede, Colorado; and Skagway, Alaska
• George C. Parker (1870–1936) — US con man who sold New York monuments to tourists^[7]
• Scotty (1872–1954) a prospector, performer, and con man, who was made famous by his many scams involving gold mining and the iconic mansion in Death Valley, popularly known as Scotty's Castle
• Joseph Weil (1875–1976) ? one of the most famous American con men of his era^[8]

• Horace de Vere Cole (1881–1936)
• Charles Ponzi (1882–1949) ? Italian immigrant into the US; "Ponzi scheme" is a "get rich fast" fraud named after him^[9]

• Victor Lustig (1890–1947) ? born in Bohemia (today's Czech Republic) and known as "the man who sold the Eiffel Tower"^[10]

• Canada Bill Jones ? riverboat gambler and card shark

Born or active in the 20th century

• Eduardo de Valfierno ? Argentine con man who allegedly masterminded the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911
• Bernie Cornfeld (1927–1995) ? ran one of the greatest scams in history which was later realized to be a Ponzi scheme^[11]

Living people

• Clifford Irving (1930) ? US writer, best known for an "authorized autobiography" of Howard Hughes that turned out to be a hoax
• Kevin Trudeau (1963) ? US writer and billiards promoter, convicted of fraud and larceny in 1991, known for a series of late-night infomercials and his series of books about "Secrets 'they' don't want you to know about".
• Frank Abagnale (1948) ? former US con artist, check forger and impostor; his autobiography, Catch Me If You Can, was made into a movie^[12]
• Gert Postel (1958) ? German medical con, a simple postman who for decades pretended to be a medical doctor, worked from 1995 for almost 2 years as a psychiatrist in a small province hospital in Saxony
• James Arthur Hogue (1959) ? US impostor who most famously entered Princeton University by posing as a self-taught orphan^[13]
• Robert Hendy-Freegard (1971) — British con artist who kidnapped people by impersonating an MI5 agent and conned them out of money; he was convicted in 2005^[14]
• Matt the Knife (1981) — American born con artist, card cheat and pickpocket who, from the ages of approximately 14 through 21, bilked dozens of casinos, corporations and at least one Mafia family out of untold sums.^[15]

See also

• Confidence trick (tv and movies)
• Confidence trick (books and literature)
• List of confidence tricks
• Quackery - questionable medical practices
• Romance scam
• Scam baiting - deliberately seeking out scammers to expose them or waste their time
• Scams in intellectual property
• Social engineering - Techniques used to manipulate people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.
• Sting operation - confidence tricks used for the purpose of law enforcement
• White-collar crime - crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation
• White van speakers - scam sales technique in which a salesman makes a buyer believe he is getting a good price on audio merchandise

Further reading

• Marek M. Kaminski (2004) Games Prisoners Play. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11721-7

References

External links

• "Arrest of the Confidence Man" New York Herald, 1849
• House of Deception bibliography and art gallery of confidence crime
• Dateline NBC investigation 'To Catch a Con Man'
• The Encyclopedia of Scam An encyclopaedia of confidence tricks
• The Worlds Greatest Con Artists Con Artists Profiles

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