The Confidence Game

by Maria Konnikova

  Madame Zingara promptly called on Burns. She’d had a vision, she told her. And that vision included “shocking details” of her personal life—which, for a small fee, she would keep to herself. Burns, eager to preserve her reputation, parted with several hundred dollars, almost everything she had.

  A week later, Madame Zingara called again. She now knew that Burns was going to be named as a correspondent in a divorce suit. But, again, for a small fee she could keep that from coming to pass. Burns promptly gave up the rest of her savings. She wasn’t the only one. The clairvoyant was very good at what she did. She had convinced the entire family that they would all be ruined by a disgraceful divorce. They were lucky, though. For $1,000, she managed to keep ruination at bay.

  But she went one step too far when she tracked down Harlow himself. She had had a revelation, she told him. He was having an affair with Mollie Burns, and “evil spirits” were working against him. The cost of an exorcism (at a special rate): $500. Unlike the Burnses, Harlow went to the police. And Madame Zingara went to jail.

  Not for long, though. One of her clients, Henry Straus, whom she’d convinced she could help find gold, supplied her bail, and she didn’t lose any time in fleeing to Chicago. She was arrested again in the winter of 1899, escaped again, and was finally caught and sentenced for fraud in 1900.

  In the hands of an artist, the mind reading game comes full circle. The more familiar and similar someone seems, the more you like them, the more you share with them, the more information the con artist has to feed back to you. And the circle begins anew.

  But heaven forbid the mark himself should make use of the same approach and see through game and artist both. To avoid that happening, the confidence man becomes an expert in tripping us up: even as he perfects the put-up, he knows how to make us even worse at reading social cues than we normally are. Call it the anti-put-up: put up the mark all the while making sure he can’t do the same thing right back. Things that trip us up, Epley has found, include pressure—time, emotional, situational—and power. When we’re feeling pressure, we grow far less able to think logically and deliberately. When we’re feeling more powerful, we tend to feel as if we don’t need others quite as much, and our ability to read their minds and the cues they throw off falters. In a version of the self-monitoring task (the Q on the forehead), Adam Galinsky and his colleagues asked people to draw an E on their foreheads. If you’d just thought about a time when you were in a high-powered position, you drew the E from your own perspective (prongs facing right). If, however, you’d just been reflecting on times when you had relatively little power, the letter flipped toward your conversation partner’s point of view. A flipped letter, in turn, signals a greater willingness and ability to take others’ point of view into account, and a better ability to read the social signs they throw off. There’s nothing a con artist likes to do more than make us feel powerful and in control: we are the ones calling the shots, making the choices, doing the thinking. They are merely there to do our bidding. And so as we throw off ever more clues, we ourselves become increasingly blind to the clues being thrown off by others.

  Take Demara’s stint in the Royal Canadian Navy. Part of his success—that is, the reason he wasn’t unmasked at once and managed to slip by with what seemed like a semblance of medical knowledge—was that he’d mastered the power dynamic perfectly and loved to make those around him feel like the experts in control. He’d deferred to another doctor’s expertise in drafting the “field guide” for soldiers who didn’t have ready medical attention. The fellow doctor was so much more knowledgeable, he’d told him, and he felt like a neophyte in comparison. The ploy worked like a charm, and Demara received all the free medical advice he could want. Later, on the ship, he did much the same thing with the captain and senior officers, always deferring to their power and seniority—even though he, too, had a claim to an elevated status. That way, he could glean all he could from them, and they, in turn, would be too flattered to scrutinize him too closely.

  Another thing that detracts from our mind reading prowess: money. Specifically, thoughts of it. In a series of nine studies, psychologist Kathleen Vohs, the chair of marketing at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, found that people who were reminded of money, even in passing, ended up paying less attention to others, and, indeed, wanted to put more distance between themselves and others. Con artists are well aware of this. And so they make financial woes (or windfalls) front and center of their put-up—much as Sylvia Mitchell did with her victims, bringing up financial considerations right away: they had too great an attachment to money; they were in an emotional predicament because they had an unhealthy relationship with material possessions; and so on. While they were busy thinking through the implications, she was busy reading them.

  * * *

  Lee Choong was a businesswoman from Singapore who had earned a master’s degree in business from NYU. Her life, however, wasn’t going quite as planned. Professionally, her job seemed at a standstill. It was 2007. She was working between eighty and a hundred hours a week at a high-profile investment bank. It was a good job. It paid well. So many others were out of work; she should have been happy. But her countless hours seemed wasted somehow. She missed her family, especially her mother, who had fallen ill and needed care. Romantically, too, there were some bumps. She had her eye on a coworker. She knew that was never a good idea, but she couldn’t help herself. The coworker, alas, was oblivious to her affections, as these things so often go. And there was one more hitch: she was a fellow female. Choong was coming to terms with a new sexual identity, and one not particularly welcome in her home culture. She felt lonely, lost, vulnerable, and exposed.

  And there it was. That warm, beckoning yellow glow from the hanging lanterns. The same beaded curtain. The same welcoming, reassuring smile that told her she wasn’t only welcome here; she was safe.

  Sylvia Mitchell could sense right away that Choong’s energy field was all out of whack. Negative energy, she told Choong, permeated her existence. But there was hope. Sylvia could get rid of it—if only she agreed to put $18,000 in a jar for Sylvia to hold. Just as an exercise. It was a gesture of good faith that would help clarify the dark forces that surrounded her.

  Then Mitchell went even further. In a past life, she told Choong, her family had somehow wronged the object of her crush; that was why she now found herself in the throngs of unrequited love. But a happy future together was possible, she assured her. She could sense it. To make it real, however, would require work. Real work. Work that couldn’t be accomplished in a single visit, or even just a few.

  Over the course of the next two years, the two women would meditate together, to better focus their energy on future love-full bliss. On her own, Mitchell said she would perform various rites to help the process along. It would take time, she warned. The slight in the past life had been severe. Time—and $128,000, which, bit by bit, Choong surrendered to her new confidante.

  As their relationship deepened, perhaps unsurprisingly Choong’s problems were showing no signs of abatement. Instead, they had only grown more severe. Her workplace love complained of sexual harassment—and soon after, Choong was fired.

  Her mother was still sick. Choong was without love, without a job, short on funds. Mitchell had taken most of what she had.

  * * *

  Neither Saalfield nor Choong was a particularly gullible woman. They were professionally successful, smart, good at what they did. And, as they would both later publicly state, they were highly skeptical of Sylvia Mitchell. But they were also vulnerable emotionally—she was just what they needed, just when they needed it. And she was just so good. “I feel as an intelligent, educated woman, it is one of the most humiliating things that’s ever happened to me,” Saalfield later confessed.

  In some sense, the role of a psychic is easier than that of many confidence artists when it comes to the put-up: the marks, in a certain respect, come preselected. Just by walking into the parlo
r, you’ve shown yourself to be open to belief and suggestion, and you’re obviously searching for an easy answer to your problem or situation. That’s true of other types of rackets as well. In the age of the Internet, it’s easier than ever to clear the first hurdle of the put-up: those who respond to the false ads, e-mails, or other phishing schemes. Gone is the need to be psychologically savvy from first glance. All you need is to be savvy enough to build an alluring storefront or craft a message that will hook your potential prey. (The bad grammar and seemingly implausible notes: those aren’t from stupidity. They’re actually well thought out beforehand. Scammers have learned the hard way that notes that sound too legitimate hook too many fish, making the weeding-out process incredibly costly. Now only the true sucker falls for the pitch.)

  And yet, in another sense, the need for perceptive psychology in the put-up—to be a good person and mind reader both—never goes away. Even with the best-laid trap, you still need to be a master of the cold read to reel in the big fish. A person can, like Saalfield, walk into a psychic’s lair on a vindictive lark. Had Mitchell been a lesser artist, Debra would have been out just seventy-five dollars. Not cheap, but not the end of the world. But with the right touch, despite her best skepticism, Saalfield parted with far more—and not just a lot of money. Money she didn’t actually have.

  A thorough put-up is essential for the con artist. You need to select your victims with care. One slip, like Madam Zingara’s, and an entire career can be in ruins. Demara didn’t just let Robert Crichton write his biography. He scouted him out first: background checks before he responded to his first letter, and multiple broken meetings in New York after that. As Crichton waited for Demara to arrive, the impostor would hide and observe how he acted. He wanted to make sure he wasn’t getting just any writer. He wanted to get the writer who would write the story he wanted. He wanted not just a biographer but also a mark.

  And he got, eventually, just that. Crichton had to write two drafts of his book. The first was more journalistically forthcoming. It told of a man who had hurt many and had, perhaps, a side even darker than that of the impostor: he was, multiple suits and complaints alleged, prone to abusive and sexually inappropriate advances toward young boys. The draft was rejected. It was too dark and pessimistic, according to the editors. An impostor needed a lighter touch, more escapades and farce, less heartbreak. Crichton gave the matter serious thought. He was a serious writer, and wanted to tell a serious story. He did not want to sugarcoat the truth.

  But then he looked back on his time with Fred. The darker version might have seemed more journalistically true, but personally he felt that Fred’s story was quite a different one. In his eyes, he later wrote in a private letter, Demara was indeed a “convert from sin.” He was troubled, yes, but he was also capable of huge feats of strength and goodness. Many of his dark deeds were the result of alcohol—a serious, lasting drinking problem. But he overcame it “by sheer willpower” and, in the end, was unlike any alcoholic Crichton had encountered. “He never would allow himself finally to lose his sense of pride and dignity. They say all alcoholics do,” he observed. “It amazed me and amazed experienced doctors at Bellevue Hospital.” (Demara had been briefly admitted as a patient, with Crichton afforded sole visiting privileges. One wonders in retrospect whether that wasn’t a further ploy to create a deeper base for personal sympathy.) “No matter how bad he was he made monumental and sometimes tragically pathetic efforts at dignity, pride, self-esteem. He was truly a victim, you might say, of a chemical force over his own true nature.”

  And that true nature, Crichton reasoned, was essentially good, regardless of what escapades may have taken place. “I early lost fear of his taking advantage of me in any way,” he said. “He was decent, fair, generous, kind . . . For a so called ‘bad actor’ at the time I could only conclude that I would trust him and his word above almost any person I know.” Demara had simply been a victim of unfortunate circumstances, which masked his fundamental decency, and even talent. “I felt he had a genuine call [to religion] but simply did not know how to respond to it. This I know, people respond to Demara. Just as he would have made a good politician, which is not to me an evil word as it unfortunately is to too many Americans, I feel he would have made a good preacher because he really loves people, enjoys them, understands them, likes to listen to them.” Crichton concluded, “He’s a pretty remarkable person and, this is especially true, he does remarkable work when he’s trusted, when people really back him. Then he responds with real zeal.”

  The darker version, Crichton decided, was incorrect. The man was ready for redemption. He had hurt others almost in spite of himself. And so Crichton created a new draft of Fred, the one that eventually made it to the bestseller lists. Fred became a hero. Demara, it seems, had intuited the outcome perfectly. He was a mind reader second to none, so good at the put-up that he could manipulate almost anyone he chose to deal with. He had picked a writer who he knew would agree with the redemption story—someone optimistic and ready to see the good in poor ol’ Fred.

  For many years, Crichton kept believing. After The Great Impostor was published, Fred began to hit his biographer up for money, time and time again, and always with a perfectly legitimate excuse. May 29, 1961: “I am here without clothes or money. If anything good happens to the book, you know where I will be.” February 23, 1961: “I could use some money, if any available, to return to California, I borrowed against salary to get here.” No date: “As much as I dislike to ask, believe it or not, I would like to take you up on that offer of money. I am really desperate.” No date: “I am absolutely without money and my clothes etc. are still in Missouri (being shipped, I hope). Any suggestions?” Each time, it was his “last chance” at redemption. Each time, he just needed a bit more.

  Eventually, Crichton would buy him a new car and pay for him to attend school for ministry training. In the late 1960s, he even tried to set him up with positive media coverage at Calvary Ranch, a new venture for young troubled boys that Demara swore was to be his final, legitimate project. (He ended up absconding with funds and abandoning the ranch and boys soon after. He was then hit with another molestation suit, which his lawyer successfully parried away.) Even then, Crichton kept believing in his reformation. “It is the old Demara tragedy replayed,” he wrote of his work at the ranch for boys. “He’s doing his usual brilliant job but because he lacks the proper credentials his work will be sacrificed and the good it is doing dumped because he can’t comply with legal formalities and bureaucratic procedures.”

  Crichton wasn’t being daft. Demara simply had that effect on people: his intuitive psychology was second to none, and he was able to read his marks well enough to know just how to play any event to make it seem, to each one, the perfect story of redemption. “My husband and I both feel you are a godsent man,” wrote one Detroit woman after learning about Demara’s Korean escapades. She wanted him, she said, to perform a lung operation on her daughter. As late as February 1974, Muriel von Weiss, the president of the Long Island Writers, wrote to say that Demara had pulled yet another disappearing act and that his supposed conversion to legitimacy was a ruse. But even still, she wished him well and “agree[d] . . . he did a lot of good.” “His brand of con operation,” she felt, “was limited to credentials and not motivated by greed or power hunger, and he performed in each career better than some of his legitimate peers.” Conveniently forgotten were the instances where he had real power to do harm.

  One evening, Crichton realized he’d been taken in yet again when he inadvertently misinformed a reporter of Fred’s whereabouts. “Later that night the reporter called me back and said how could I account for Rev. Hanson denying he knew Demara,” he wrote to the same Robert Hanson. “From long and painful experience I knew exactly how. One was that Demara indeed was not there and had never been there, two, that one of Demara’s superiors or colleagues was covering for him (that is a bad word, it should read—protecting) and the other was that Demara himself was
answering the phone, announcing a name such as yours and denying that he was there or ever was there.” Crichton knew exactly what Demara was up to, yet he kept believing in him all the same.

  In the face of accumulating evidence, though, Crichton’s goodwill eventually evaporated. Twice Demara had sued him. And one time too many he had made a fool of him for relying on his goodness. He had made Fred a hero, but Fred, in the end, deserved none of it. “Your reputation, as you well know, really far outruns many of your actual accomplishments,” he wrote in one letter. And later: “I have made a hero out of a bag of guts. If you don’t think I won’t, if need be, destroy the image, I will.”

  In his notes for The Great Impostor, Crichton had summed up Fred’s techniques—and their success—in Fred’s own words, the essence of the put-up in the telling of the confidence man himself. “Americans would rather be liked than right. (This fact allowed you to operate after reasonable suspicion was aroused.) Americans are amazingly forgiving to the errant sinner (almost everywhere you went they would have you back). Americans are among the most trusting people in the world. Accept you at your word and at your face value until proven otherwise. (They don’t stand and watch you or question you but wait for you to volunteer your own information. This, of course, is a great asset to the impostor.) The test of the freedom of this country. Where else but in America could a guy like me operate? On ability of famed impostor to circulate: If they aren’t looking for you, they don’t see you.” What Crichton didn’t realize was how closely those words captured his own experience. Fred had profiled him just as he had all of his other victims and had played out the precise drama that Crichton both wanted and expected to see—the perfect put-up, perfectly tailored. But because Crichton was himself a character, he failed to see the ruse with the detachment he reserved for the great impostor’s other marks.

  * * *