Scams That Echo Through the Ages

[beef_cake]

After finding out that my own parents got conned out of a lot of money, I went looking for a way I could possibly explain to them that they were involved with a scam.

I picked up a book called Hustlers & Con Men, by Jay Robert Nash. It is, as the subtitle says, an anecdotal history, focusing mainly on the heyday of the American confidence man.

Comments

[thumbie]

Oi. I still feel so bad that they got in this situation. It's gotta be like talking to cult members because the foundation of their logic is so flawed that it's hard to get anywhere else with them by reasoning. There needs to be an advertisement, whether for a workshop or just a PSA, somewhere that lots of retirement-age people or just people would see it, like in newspapers or in with tax returns or something.

You know? It would be a really interesting way to get people's attention, to actually pretend you were doing a scam (it would require the government's approval so maybe it could be a new function of the govt whenever there is money again) and then as soon as the people send a check/show up at a conference/whatever, you return the cash and then explain to them that they just got punk'd this could have easily been the beginning of the loss of their life savings and then proceed to show an instructional presentation about what the dangers are out there and who they can report such advances to.

[beef_cake]

I rather like the idea of a "you've been punked" letter.

How about a reality TV show? There'd be lots of interviews with senior citizens through the whole process.

[thumbie]

No second thoughts, let's go go go!

Since that appears to be how many of these reality show ideas actually get off the ground.

[thumbie]

That's actually the best idea yet. People watch those and take them to heart.

[zudini]

Reality TV show = genius

Candid Camera did all sorts of illegal shit to people under the guise of reality TV. You could make a killing off the ratings and help save people from themselves at the same time.

Good luck with your parents. Please keep updating us with your progress in debrainwashing them. I'm fascinated by this topic in general and occasionally try to practice on my local scientologists. Remember to never approach the subject head-on since the best viral memes always include a "conspiracy / faith / don't trust the man" defense mechanism. Other than that I have no really good advice. maerdi and I once thought to catalog the glitches in human reasoning that make these scams possible, in the hopes of analysing their effectiveness and discovering counermeasures. We started at http://code.google.com/p/human-reasoning/ but didn't get very far.