The Art of the Con

by R. Paul Wilson

  This problem with reaction time is the secret to the coin snatch, so I always make it very clear to my victim that any attempt to move their hand away from the target zone or close their fingers before I move is counted as a loss. This covers all bases, but it also adds greater pressure.

  To effectively hustle people with this stunt, I need to gradually work my way up to the maximum distance, where the suckers will perceive my chances as being almost impossible, when I am actually just as comfortable snatching the coin under those conditions. Starting close, I might bet for a dollar a time but I would let them win a couple so that I don’t come on too strong.

  Once we’ve played a few times, I suggest taking a step back, but only if we increase the bet. I lose the first one and win the next two. I start on a fourth but as tension builds, I take another step back and ask if he wants to play for even more money. Since he has already won a couple of rounds, he feels confident enough to accept the bet, but I go on to win twice. Now I step back again, this time until my hand is apparently too far away and tell him to make sure I don’t step forward, increasing the amount being bet one more time.

  Following this structure I can keep offering more rounds, holding back my true level of skill until the mark reaches his betting limit, but there’s still one more proposition that can not only squeeze the mark for more money but rope in the crowd too.

  If you place a coin into your hand (a quarter is perfect), laying it on the outstretched fingers rather than on your palm, and close your hand tightly, you will feel the coin inside your hand. The tighter you squeeze, the more you can feel that coin. Now remove the coin and close your hand again—can you still feel the coin? You should be able to. This phantom coin is the basis of my final proposition, which never fails to get the money and attract other people into the game. Here’s what happens:

  I have the mark hold the coin tightly inside his fist, then remove it and close his hand again to confirm he still feels a coin inside. Now I have him hold out his hand, palm up and flat, as before. I repeat the snatch, but this time we both keep our hands closed and raise them for all to see. Now I offer the bet to the crowd: Who thinks I have the coin and who thinks the sucker has it? The crowd goes one way or the other, but the mark begins to believe he really has the coin in his hand, so I offer him the chance to play double or nothing for everything he’s lost so far. More often than not they take the bet, but I still don’t let him open his hand until the crowd decides which way to bet (by round of applause). Now that the mark is convinced he has the coin, the crowd tends to bet on him, but that turns out to be a big mistake. When my opponent opens his hand he is holding a coin, but not the one we’ve been playing for! Instead of the quarter, he finds a copper coin of similar size. Somehow I not only managed to snatch the coin, I also switched it in the process! The winning quarter is revealed inside my fist before I give my mark (and the audience) a free pass.

  You can see how this simple stunt has been broken down and reconstructed to escalate toward the big finish, each phase increasing the mark’s losses but keeping him in the game as the conditions become seemingly more difficult for me while appearing easier for him. This principle of gradually increasing the stakes transforms a trick into a series of traps where the sucker’s interest in the proposition and the hustler’s ability to manipulate determines how much is ultimately being played for.

  Concealed or unusual skill is often the basis of a good hustle, but secret information and trickery are also employed to get the money. Some, like the loud-mouthed hustler who lost his shirt to the “Dragon Lady,” use an aggressive, taunting approach to badger their marks into submission. Others, like Moves, are charming and friendly, establishing trust before taking their victims to the cleaners. Almost all play on a person’s inflated sense of self-worth and an overly optimistic faith in his own abilities. Whether conscious of it or not, even if someone publicly proclaims a lack of ability in any pursuit, somewhere inside, his ego is telling him the opposite. A good hustler makes the mark listen to that voice and ignore the other side of himself that should be yelling at him to walk away.

  In truth, most people don’t gamble very often and might never be faced with a proposition bet for big money. That being said, let me remind you of the advice given to Sky Masterson, Marlon Brando’s character in the film adaptation of Guys and Dolls. Masterson’s father warned him that one day, someone would walk up and claim they could make the jack of spades fly out of a brand new deck of cards, hop onto his shoulder, and squirt cider in his ear. “But son,” his father told him, “do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you’re going to wind up with an ear full of cider.” This has become a well-known story and I bring it up not only because it aptly illustrates why you should walk away from any proposition bet (no matter how crazy it sounds), but because it applies in an interesting way to my friend Moves.

  He too has a deck of cards and also proposes to make the jack of spades rise up and squirt cider, but to him it’s just a gag—a special device he made in his workshop that pushes open the box and then causes a brass, enamel-painted jack to extend and then squirt liquid as LED lights flash in the jack’s eyes. When I first saw it, I was amused but doubtful that it had any value to a hustler, and I asked Moves if it ever made money.

  “A few bucks, maybe, but that’s not what it’s for,” he told me.

  And that was that.

  You learn, when dealing with guys like Moves, who make a living from their secrets, not to ask too many questions, especially if the answer isn’t forthcoming. In the months since he showed me that particular contraption, I’ve tried to understand its true purpose. Here’s a guy who can clear a pool table and has a hidden compartment in his trunk filled with devices like his coin-toss flip-flops that are all designed to win money by any means necessary. Why would he have such a goofy device? I’ve come to realize that this gag has nothing to do with winning money and everything to do with another important element of the hustle: softening up the mark. The coin toss might tell him if the mark is worth his time; his “jack in the box” is merely a way to break the ice or release the tension after Moves starts to win.

  Moves likes to play pool for money, and he likes to have the edge on his opponent. Winning money with prop bets is a way to make some cash, but it’s really about figuring out who has “got gamble” and who has the deepest pockets to play into. A cider-squirting jack and a mechanical flip-flop are just means to an end—to put a sucker at the table.

  Footnote

  * I learned this from Kip Pascal’s excellent self-published book, Coin Snatching.

  TRICKS, BABY

  I don’t want you to pay me anything right now,” I said. “All we need to know is that you are able to afford the deposit and one month’s rent. If after that, you are successful, then we will proceed.”

  The mark and her friend walked around the flat, still unable to believe that a place in such a prime location was available at such a low price. I had already anticipated this and was waiting for the inevitable question: why so cheap?

  “There are two reasons,” I told them. “First, the client needs to rent the space immediately so it is priced to attract tenants quickly. Second, the lease is for only three months at a time, as the owner might return home within a year or two. In my experience, it’s more likely they will be gone for much longer. The weather in California is so much nicer than it is here!”

  The mark accepted this as I pretended to take a phone call with bad news about another potential tenant who was apparently having trouble raising the necessary security deposit. I returned and confided to the mark that she had a real opportunity to secure the apartment if she was willing to act quickly and was genuinely able to afford the flat. To prove this, she would need to wire the necessary amount to a friend or relative and then show me proof of the transaction. This would confirm that she had the funds without having to give me any money until the deal was complete. I explained that this was necessary when trying
to rent a property so quickly as many people claim they have enough money but soon fall through before a deal can be completed.

  “You have to understand,” I told her, “once we agree to manage a property, it’s essential that we have a real tenant or it might cost my company a lot of money. Time wasters are all too common and very expensive.”

  Of course, this was all a complete lie. The flat did not belong to us in any way. Had we been real con artists, it would simply have been a matter of breaking into someone’s property while on vacation and renting it to several marks before the owner returned. Lack of time can be an issue in these circumstances since most apartment rentals are not arranged in one afternoon, but our scam was able to steal two months worth of rent in just a couple of hours.

  “How do I send the money? I don’t understand why that’s necessary. Why don’t I just send it to you?” the mark asked.

  “It’s just a matter of proving you have the means. You don’t pay us anything until you receive the keys but, under the circumstances, I can assure you that, if you’re willing to act quickly the apartment is yours.”

  I could see the story was working; she was close to committing and all she needed was a gentle nudge. “It’s perfectly safe. You simply go to the bank, take out the money and send it by wire transfer to someone you know and trust. Fax me a copy of the receipt and I’ll be satisfied you are able to rent this property. I’ll see to it that you have first refusal on Monday morning. We do it this way so that you don’t have to give us any money until you take the apartment. You have to be careful these days—there are a lot of con men out there who just want your money.”

  The mark quickly filled out the rental forms before heading to the bank, and while I gave the same story to another potential victim, she did as instructed and wired over two thousand pounds (almost five thousand dollars) to a friend, then faxed us the receipt. According to my story, the mark could then simply cancel the wire and take back the money, but as soon as she sent that fax, her cash was as good as gone.

  Con games evolve over time. Con artists are always looking for fresh ways to trick people and new methods are often incorporated into old scams, which have been around for centuries. Selling or renting a property that belongs to someone else is nothing new. If a hustler can convince a mark that his story is true, he can easily take the money and run. A simple flaw in the money transfer system (at that time, around 2009) allowed scammers to con people into thinking their money was safe when they were actually being manipulated into giving it away.

  What our victims didn’t realize was that the transfer service we asked them to use only required a proof of ID and the number of the transfer receipt for someone to collect the money that was being sent. It was true that they could have canceled the transfer and retrieved the money and that their trusted friend could pick it up instead, but once they shared the paperwork with me, Alex was able to make up a fake ID (a library card) and quickly collect the cash. The real estate scam was just a way to hook the mark. The line was simple and the means by which the mark’s money was stolen had been adapted to the time and place.

  There are hundreds of classic con games but almost all rely on the same principles. Victims become wrapped up in a story while focused on a prize and are eventually convinced to commit (and lose) their money. It’s easy to see these elements from a distance, but a con game often reflects the hopes and desires of each mark, and for most, the experience is personal, even traumatic. Cons like these happen quickly, over hours or days. Their objective is to take a lot of money in a short period of time, but while there is enormous variety in the stories being told, most are just window dressing for age-old scams.

  Bait and Switch

  In London, in the 1950s, Dick Chevelle was a well-known magic dealer whose family owned a fur coat shop in the city center, which had an ingenious scam to attract people into the store. In their window was a beautiful fur coat on a mannequin with an incredibly attractive low price. Every year, hundreds of women came in to try on that coat but it refused to fit any of them. The shoulder on one side was a little loose or the sleeves were too short; there was always some detail that meant the coat wasn’t quite right. Naturally another coat would appear, and then another until the customer found one that fit perfectly. By this time, the price had escalated with each new garment until it was more than double the price of the coat in the window.

  The scam was in how the coat was tailored and the wooden mannequin specially made to display it. There was too much room in one shoulder, one sleeve was a slightly different length, the other was a little narrower at one end, and the length of the coat was different on each side, but when hung on the mannequin—which had been made to compensate for all of these flaws—it looked beautiful. Once placed on a potential customer, the coat would never fit until, one day, an old lady walked in with a walking stick and a hunched back. For her, the coat was a perfect fit, and she insisted on buying it for the price advertised in the window.

  Bait and switch has become such a well-known strategy because it is now a common (questionable) business tactic used to lure customers with an attractive offer before upselling to a more expensive alternative. You’ve no doubt seen many examples of this, from simple psychological ploys and cleverly worded advertising to outright lies that are difficult to disprove.

  Con games like the iPad scam, where a mark is left holding a cheap floor tile or White Van scams, where electronics are offered to people under the pretense of being excess or stolen stock, are much more blatant. Once the victim has examined a device, it is secretly switched. People return home to find they’ve bought a box filled with potatoes or cheap bottles of water instead of a Blu-Ray player or camcorder.

  The Gold Brick game is a classic bait and switch scam where something is presented as being of much greater value than it actually is. The term refers to scams where a mark was convinced to buy a bar of gold from someone who either needed to sell it quickly or had no idea of its true value. In some versions, one con artist would play the part of the seller while another would “partner-up” with the mark to buy the gold cheaply. In essence, the mark thought he was scamming some yokel until he took the gold to be assayed and the truth dawned. This scam was usually accomplished with one real gold bar and a few gold-plated duplicates, but modern variations rarely need to switch the merchandise, relying instead on spurious proof of value that’s easily accepted by a mark.

  In a variation on this ploy, scammers would “salt” a mine by scattering tiny gold nuggets or rough gems for their victim to find before agreeing to buy a worthless hole in the ground. In the Thai Gem Scam, tourists are lured to bogus stores to buy supposedly expensive stones at bargain prices. Planted evidence or sham experts can be more effective than trying to make a switch or passing off a duplicate, but the principle is the same: prove by means of deception something is real and worth more than the mark is asked to pay. Whether you switch the genuine article out, employ a confederate to give a false variation, or invest in a few tiny stones or nuggets up front, the mark is ultimately fooled into buying something that proves to be worthless.

  One of the most ingenious variations on this scam allowed the mark to bring his own expert, to test everything, and to keep his hands on the merchandise at all times.

  In a hotel room in New Jersey, a jeweler and his associate met someone they believed to be a gold dealer who was about to return to Europe with a briefcase full of gold chains. The gold dealer was, in truth, an expert con artist who had roped the jeweler with a story about not wanting to take his gold chains back to Amsterdam after an unsuccessful business trip. He was willing to sell the chains at a very attractive price, if the jeweler was able to pay cash right away. Naturally, the mark wanted to test the gold and the dealer agreed for him to bring someone along for that purpose; but, before he would let him start the test, the con man demanded to see the money. The jeweler showed him the cash, the test continued, and every gold chain the jeweler tested proved to be solid,
eighteen-karat gold. After a brief negotiation, they agreed on a price. The jeweler then took the whole case and returned to New York, while the fake dealer went in search of another victim.

  The chains that the jeweler bought were solid gold, but worth only two-thirds of what he paid—but the chains were never switched. How the mark was tricked was ingenious. Just before the jeweler had his employee test the chains, the con artist demanded to see the money, and while the marks were misdirected, switched the tiny bottle of acid that was used to test the gold. The results were now determined by the scammer’s chemical, which was designed to react to fourteen-karat gold as would be expected for eighteen-karat gold! This is an excellent example of a deceptive mind at work. Why try to switch a large briefcase full of chains, when you can switch a tiny plastic bottle instead?

  On The Real Hustle we reconstructed another ingenious con game that was originally played on wealthy homeowners around London in the 1960s. Posing as an antiques dealer, a con artist would offer to value a mark’s collection of artifacts, paintings, and objets d’art. During this valuation, the hustler would spot a vase or small statue and ask if the owner had a complete pair, since this would be worth many times more than just one. The mark admitted that he didn’t, and the charade would continue until, a few days later, the con artist would return and excitedly tell the mark that he had found a matching vase and that, if the mark bought it, he could make a huge profit at auction.