An International Organization Of Law Enforcement Professionals: Established in 1986

Modified excepts from How To Become a Professional Con Artist, a book written by Lt. Dennis Marlock. Paladin Press, Boulder, Co., © 2001.

Why Con Artists Love Us

Throughout my law enforcement career I have heard well-intentioned individuals tell me that fraud pales in comparison to real crimes like robbery, murder, and rape.  For them, fraud has no real victims, no serious consequences, and no impact on societal progress. Although this belief continues to gain support, we are now paying the price for such obstinately perverse thinking.  And the cost of this public opinion is an erosion of the trust that is so crucial to the survival of a civilized society.

In a National survey conducted in 1996, by the Washington Post, in conjunction with Harvard University, and the Kaiser Family Foundation, it was disclosed that the majority of Americans no longer trust one another and have lost the once accepted notion that most evildoers were safely behind prison walls.  This survey only proves that our reasons to distrust others have increased, but the amount of trust we invest remains constant.  If this were not true, then fraud would become the first crime in the annals of criminal science to become extinct.

Every con artist I have ever questioned made it known that trust is something best left to foolish and otherwise gullible dupes.  Although we can understand this warped view from the mindset of these sociopaths, our acceptance of such flawed thinking should be cause for great concern. All of us, including the most proficient con artists on earth, are far more dependant on trust than we realize or care to admit.  Perhaps this might appear far-fetched, but without an ability to trust we could not live in the manner to which we have become accustomed.  Here’s why.

Regardless of how self-sufficient you might consider yourself, the truth is that you cannot survive on your own.  All of us are forever indebted to others for everything we now or shall ever possess.  There are no exceptions.

If you attempt to disagree with this, then how will you protest?  Any efforts to express your dissension will necessitate the use of either written or verbal communication.  And since you created neither the language, nor the writing materials, you must first invent a new means of communication.  Should you succeed in doing this, then where will you have received the knowledge to assemble such a wondrous creation?  Excluding an act of Divine intervention, you will have relied on what others before you have found and created.  We even benefit from our ancestor’s documented failures because we are afforded an opportunity to avoid making the same mistakes.

Despite any discomfort we might now experience when placing trust in others, we have yet to devise a sensible way to avoid it.  We have neither the time nor the inclination to verify everything we hear and see. When we purchase groceries from the local market, we trust that they are safe to eat.  If not, then we would have to conduct chemical tests, or return to the ancient practice of using human food tasters.  When driving the family car over a bridge, we trust it was properly constructed and that we won’t suddenly become proof of Newton’s Law of gravity.

You can, I’m sure, add many hundreds of other instances where during the course of a normal day you must place your life in the hands of people you have never met. Our common dilemma appears to be this: If we must trust others, then who deserves our trust, and who does not?

Although there does not exist any foolproof way to detect our world’s liars, we can protect ourselves in most cases by asking ourselves two questions:

Does the person giving me this information have anything to gain by lying to me?

If this person is lying to me, how much will it affect my life?

 

Should the answer to either of these questions include the words yes, or a lot, then let this serve as your credibility guide. Make others earn your trust and don’t immediately assume that you have no right to question their motives.

All of this might appear overly simplistic, but it does work because it makes you stop and think. The con artists of our world know that  their victims, each and every one of them, are smart enough to spot a scam in progress if allowed time to think. Suspending that ability to think, if even for an instant, is what the con artists do best. Such deceivers also know that the second ingredient that goes into the making of a workable scam involves telling the potential victims what they want to hear. If someone insists on seeking instant cures, an easy way out of difficult problems, or if they refuse to believe they can handle their own problems, then there is no shortage of con artists who are willing to tell them what they want to hear.

Con artists won't destroy the world, but they can certainly make our life difficult.  If you learn nothing else about con artists, let it be the knowledge that they are neither invincible or harmless. Never a day passes when they aren't busy ruining someone's life. Then, too, such deceivers can, and are being apprehended and held accountable for their crimes. Although such accountability is now sporadic in its application, it does prove that we really do have a choice in how we treat such activity.

Why so many within our society have chosen to downplay or ignore these obvious crimes is a topic for another article. For now, let it be known that our nation's con artists have come to depend on such tolerance for their very survival.

Minus the  polite euphemisms, if we insist on playing the part of village idiots, then do we really have the right to complain when we are viewed and treated as such by those who chose to deceive us?

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Copyright © 2003 Professionals Against Confidence Crime