Scams and Cons at Any Age, Part I, as told by Admiral Ackbar

“It’s a trap!” – Return of the Jedi

Admiral Ackbar knows the score . . .

Con games are as old as lying, which is to say as old as people.  The “con” in con game stands for “confidence.”  The entire point of a con game is to gain the confidence of your victim or “mark” so that they don’t suspect that something is wrong.  True story:  I was at the State Fair here in Upper Lowermidwestia some years back and one of the carnival workers would try to lure people to play the carnival games by saying to passersby . . . “Hey, Mark.”  I assumed he meant Mark Twain, who had been travelling with us:

But in reality he meant me, which was good because Mark Twain is only imaginary, and I would feel pretty bad if other people saw him, too.  He was open and outgoing that I was just a mark to play his game and lose money.  I fooled him!  I played that stupid basketball game until I won the medium-sized stuffed animal.  Only cost me $75 in tickets to finally win it!

And there are plenty of other names con men call the mark (thanks to Wikipedia for a nice list):  sucker, stooge, rube, or gull (for gullible).  There are lots of other names for the con game as well, but con game or scam will work for our purposes.

The perfect con game (we’ll just use “con” as a noun from here on out) should just look like another event in the mark’s life.  Heck, it might even be something that the mark brags about.  The idea is that the mark willingly gives the con man (or grifter) his money, and then, for whatever reason, doesn’t realize he’s been cheated, or, if he does realize he’s been cheated, won’t talk to anyone about it.  In many cases the actual con game sounded much more difficult than working, and a good grifter might make even more money as a politician or salesman with poor scruples (I crossed the one out because I didn’t want to be redundant).

How do you avoid being cheated?  It’s hard.  The first concept is “you can’t cheat an honest man.”  Ideally, if you were to avoid everything you were to run across where the deal seemed too good to be true, you’d probably be able to avoid 90% plus of the scams that are out there.  The other thing is being properly skeptical of claims and looking for unbiased verification.  However, the very best scams attempt to provide you with unbiased verification in the form of biased websites, biased experts, and situations that apply pressure to make a decision . . . now.

As a rule, if I have only three hours or some other arbitrarily fixed and short timeframe to make almost any decision, the answer is “no.”  I’ve never felt bad about that . . . rule, except for the experience that made me set that rule . . . which you can read about below.

But different scams are appropriate for different ages.  I can swindle a three year old all day long, but the big problem (and the reason I don’t spend my day swindling three year olds) is that three year olds have inherently bad credit and a very limited access to large amounts of cash.  They’re certainly gullible, but they’re crappy victims.  Rule number one:  never spend time swindling the broke.  I learned that lesson only after accumulating about 5,000 drool covered Happy Meal® toys.  Stupid toddlers.

Sometimes it’s not a scam . . . 

Also, despite the jokes I might make, this is a how to NOT get swindled post.  Knowledge is power.  Or something.  Anyway . . .

Teenagers:

Teenagers are only slightly more difficult to swindle than toddlers.  They simply don’t know much.  But unlike toddlers, they think they know everything, which makes them easier to swindle.  But also like toddlers, teenagers don’t have all that much that’s worth taking.  I’d avoid cheating them – it’s really not sporting.

Here’s my story of getting grifted as a teen, from my blog post on cars (Repeat After Me: Never Buy a New Car (and other lessons for young adults)):

(Backstory:  my car was rear-ended by a drunk teen.)  The car, literally owned by me for less than two months needed a lot of repair.  I went in to find out when my car would be done.  The manager (the father of a girl that had graduated a year before me) invited me into his office.  He had a fairly long speech that he shared, indicating that he had found some cheaper parts than he had originally quoted the insurance company, and, well, my $200 deductible could go down to $40 if I only paid him in cash, right then.

I’m not sure how he knew that I had exactly (and only) $40 on me at the time, but his cash radar was perfect.  I pulled out my wallet (brown nylon with a Velcro® strip that kept it closed) and pulled out my $40 and handed it over.

I felt vaguely dirty afterward, like I’d done something wrong.  Honestly, I still fill icky about it writing this down.  The reality is that he probably just needed money his wife couldn’t track for booze or lunch and saw an 18 year old coming . . . and decided to separate me from all the cash that I had.

Yeah, not very sporting, right?  But, again, all it cost me was $40.  Much better to scam are . . .

College Age/Young Adults:

The biggest scam for many kids is college.  And it looks so legitimate.  But college is the perfect scam because it involves big money.  Tuition isn’t cheap, and is rising far faster than inflation says it should.  Beyond that, the current average grade at Harvard is an A minus.  Let that sink in.  Nothing says scam like a diploma mill, and if Harvard is a diploma mill, what chance does Lame Duck County Community College have to enforce anything resembling an academic standard?

Additionally, college has entered into the realm of “being the new high school” since employers are looking for smart employees.  College at least weeds half of the students out even with the high average grades, so it’s at least some sort of test.  It would be far cheaper for businesses and the economy as a whole if we just allowed IQ or intelligence testing of employee candidates which correlates well with not only intelligence but also with diligence.  Alas, for some reason it seems to be some sort of allowable bypass to only hire from colleges that only accept kids with great ACT or SAT scores (which are great proxies for IQ).  So, instead of an IQ test that takes half an hour or so and costs a few hundred dollars, kids now have to shell out tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars to make them candidates for top positions.  And don’t even TRY to pass the bar (outside of California) without a law degree approved by the American Bar Association . . . .

Additionally, college has the advantage of generally not being paid for by the person getting the service.  Often, it’s paid for by parents.  When it’s not, it’s often paid for by student loans.  Buy, you say:  “John Wilder, the student has to pay back the student loans.  Aren’t they responsible?”

“Nice hat,” I respond, “it must keep the sunlight off your pointy head.”  Seriously, have you ever met an 18 year old that could intellectually conceive of paying off a debt of tens of thousands of dollars over the course of a decade or more?  NO!  We don’t allow these people to drink because they’re far too stupid.  But, yet, we allow them to make decisions that essentially grind them into servitude for the Academic-Industrial Complex.  Ohh, I need to trademark that phrase.

Another way that scams get you is similar to what happened to my friend Joe – I discussed this in a blog last year (Scams, Your Momma, and Cheap Speakers)

“So, guys, the most incredible thing happened to me,” said Joe.  “I was at a Burger King® and I had just finished eating.  I was walking back out to my car, and this guy in a van stopped me.”

I think I jumped in with something to the effect that very few good things happen when a guy from a van approaches you in a Burger King™ parking lot.  Joe ignored me and continued, “He had these speakers in the back of his van.  He had dropped them off at a rental, and he had mistakenly signed two extra out.  If he took them back to the shop, they would have fired him for checking the extras out.  These are $1000 speakers! Each!

“I got them for $300 for the pair!  They sound totally awesome with my stereo!  I had to run to the bank to get the cash, but I got them!”

I smiled.

I had just read in the local newspaper that there was a scammer group operating around the metropolitan area of Moderatelylargecity, East Westeria near where we lived.  They were selling speakers worth about $50 a pair out of the back of trucks at fast food restaurants.  Cash only.

I thought to myself – “Hey, Joe likes the speakers.  He really likes them.  And if you tell him it was all a scam, he’ll hate the speakers and feel stupid.  Is it hurting anyone to let him think he got a deal?”  Joe was a nice guy, and I successfully held back my inner jerk (on that far distant morning).

So, college age kids are just coming into their prime for scams.  I’ve heard that they’ve updated the old “speakers from a van” to include websites touting the brand of speaker that they’re “selling.”  In the information age, have to be ready for the 22 year old with a smart phone.

Amazingly, I’ve only gotten 22 years into my 78 year survey of how you will be cheated during your life.  I’ll continue this topic next Wednesday.