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Wow! Has he been living under a rock? I thought only old clueless people fell for that crap.
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@67alecto: On the contrary, some of the best scams are constructed to prey explicitly on people who are honest and especially people who expect their own honesty and trust to be reciprocated.
One of the commonest street scams involves two \"strangers\" and a mark. Imagine you're in Vegas on the strip. A \"stranger\" approaches you with a bag of chips and says he found them -- are they yours? Being honest, you naturally say no. Then another \"stranger\" -- actually an accomplice of the first guy -- approaches. He suggests that the three of you cash in the chips and split the money. After that follows some debate about who will take the chips inside and bring the cash back. Stranger #1 offers, but Stranger #2 says he thinks he will disappear with the money. After some back and forth, you find you've agreed to go inside with Stranger #1,while Stranger #2 waits in case the real owner shows up... and both of you agree to give Stranger #2 $100 to hold as \"earnest money\" so that he knows the two of you won't skip out on him. Inside the casino, Stranger #1 disappears on you! You try to cash the chips and find, of course, they are fake. You rush back outside to look for Stranger #2... who has vanished with your $100.
This scam works *precisely* because the victim is honest. When Stranger #2 agrees to \"trust\" the victim with the chips, and Stranger #1 agrees to \"trust\" #2 with $100, the victim's own trust mechanisms lead him to reciprocate. The less honest the mark, the less likely this is to work. Fascinating, isn't it?
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Actually, you just proved my point. If someone comes in and says they \"found\" money/chips/whatever, my natural inclination is to turn it in to the place that would be the most likely place the person who had lost it would look for it (the casino, the store, the police department, etc).
In your example, your so-called \"honest\" mark is attempting to keep money that is not yours...somehow, you went from \"being honest, you naturally say no\" to agreeing to split the money when a 3rd person shows up.
That's dishonest, and in this case, I would have not been scammed, and you would have. Now THAT is fascinating.
@theczardictates: I would think an honest person would want nothing to do with accepting someone elses winnings.
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@theczardictates: @DeeJayQueue: Exactly, I think we have a problem when cashing in other peoples lost chips is characterized as being honest.
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@theczardictates: No. An honest person wouldn't assist someone in cashing chips that weren't theirs. They'd advise them to hand them in and walk away.
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@theczardictates: You have an odd sense of honesty if you think the victim in that scenario was being honest. Those \"found\" chips don't belong to any one of the people in the scam, the two conspirators or the victim. The honest thing to do would have been to turn the chips into police or security. The con men rely on the victims greed for something that doesn't belong to him for that scam to work. Wake up.
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@theczardictates: \"This scam works *precisely* because the victim is honest.\"
I admit to being extremely gullible BECAUSE of the fact that I try to be honest. It has little to do with money; I just take everyone at their word. I can't fathom people lying to your face.
Other posters are correct in that greed wouldn't get me, but a seemingly honest request I would likely fall for.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-159466-100x100.png\")
@67alecto:
I wonder what you people are thinking sometimes. You can't cheat someone out of money because they honestly want to help? It happens every single day on the street corner! Many of the people you see on the corner with a sign begging for change are scamming you under the guise of helping them out.. like the mom with 4 kids (where are they? oh, with the dad, right) or the dude at the gas station that broke down aways and needs a couple bucks for gas.
Honesty scams happen all the time.
@trujunglist: There's a difference between real charity and greed in the guise of charity.
The perfect example is the story of a soldier trying to get home to see his wife/sick parents/kid/etc. He needs money to get home, but all he has to trade is a diamond ring.
He has no money, but will sell this ring that he swears is worth $1000 for $500 (or $200, $100, etc). The point being, you can make a profit if you help him out. You KNOW you would be ripping him off, but you feel better because you're helping him somehow.
Of course, when you get the ring appraised, it turns out it's worthless.
An honest person who genuinely wants to help, buys him a bus ticket home. A dishonest person gets scammed.
@67alecto: But even an honest person who just buys him a bus ticket got cheated out of the price of a bus ticket.
@trujunglist: Or like the people who call up the elderly, posing as one of their grandchildren. They claim to have been arrested, or otherwise stranded, and need money to get themselves out of this situation. So, grandma or grandpa wires money to this \"grandchild\", in fact a complete stranger and con artist.
@theczardictates: Actually the Vegas situation theczardictates writes isn't an honest person, it's a greedy person. A truly honest person would have turned the bag into the police hoping it is returned to the rightful owner. The story you tell is 2 scam artists relying on someone who wants a cut of the money and is willing to do what ever it takes to get it. So that doesn't sound like an honest person to me. There's a difference between honest and suspicious.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1177-100x100.png\")
@theczardictates: No, see, that scam works because the victim is trusting, not honest.
If the victim were honest, he'd simply say \"no, those aren't my chips\" and walk away and be done with it. The con works because the victim wants to take part in getting something he didn't earn, thus his dishonesty
@DeeJayQueue: Does anybody EARN any inheritance? I mean unless you kill the person willing it to you, it is what THEY earned, and what you getting for knowing them
From 419eater.com
2. But only people who are greedy and a bit dishonest themselves would get sucked in. After all most of the letters require you to pass yourself off as a relative on legal documents so they deserve what they get.
Many of the early letters did state either that person x (usually a foreign national) had died without relatives and the corrupt government would confiscate this money if person Y (the victim) doesn't impersonate a relative to claim the money. Another variation was that the money had been obtained by over-invoicing oil contracts and they needed help to sneak it out of the country. But usually these letters had a disclaimer to the effect of, \"This is a completely legitimate transaction. It will be carried out legally, and you will be protected from any breach of the law.\" This was to reassure more honest victims that everything was above board and legal.
Now letters come in hundreds of different formats - just check out the Surplus Letters Forum! There are the well-known next-of-kin letters, the orphan scams, repentant dying sinner needs help giving fortune away to charity, tsunami victim donation appeals, fake cheque scams, wash-wash, anti-scam scams (been a victim of 419 crime? We'll get your money back for you - at a price!) and more.
Good, well-meaning people get tricked. Consider this woman:
From: XXX XXX Jennings
To: Amanda Fairheart-Smythe
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 12:09:16 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
Dear Amanda Fairheart-Smythe,
I wish I had received this email over 3 years ago. This man has stolen all that I had saved and money that I borrowed. I heard from his Mother (?) telling me a sad story that she was dying from Aids and wanted me to take her children as my own when she died. She had set up an Inheritance account and put it in my name. How stupid could I have been? What I sent was to cover legal fees, legal documents, etc... The money was never sent here. I have heard in the last couple of days from the bank and have found out that Kwesi Bandermann and others are thieves. Why did it take over 3 years to find this out? I would never put your informants life in danger. My life is in danger now as well as my family. I have received threats this week. I am so afraid now and don't know what to do. How did you know that Kwesi Bandermann was expected to arrive here by plane? He did not arrive and I pray to God he doesn't. How did you get this email address? Only 2 people had it. It was Mr. Richard Meddings and Kwesi Bandermann. I can tell you the whole story if you need it.
Sincerely,
XXX XXX Jennings
All she wanted to do was adopt some children whose mother had died of AIDS. She was scammed over 3 years and lost vast amounts of money. Greedy? I don't think so.
Also consider the vast number charity scams. Less than 2 days after the tsunami killed over 200,000 people in Asia on Boxing Day 2004, scam letters were being circulated. People responded to these not because they were greedy but because they were generous and wanted to help those in trouble.
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@67alecto: No, you can. Quite easily. Honesty has nothing to do with wanting to claim an \"inheritence\" but gullibility does. Then there are a variety of scams aimed solely AT honest people. The \"Help, I'm/My grandma/father/mother/brother is sick, I need money for an operation\".
People who say you can't cheat an honest man probably also think you can judge someones personality with a firm handshake and a look in their eye.
@Ghede:
Thinking you can get a huge inheritance from a total stranger (\"The lawyer said his client had no family but wanted to leave the money to a Rempel. It was his lucky day.\") is not honest. You realize you don't deserve some other family's inheritance, but you want it anyway.
No, I think that saying has quite a lot of truth.
@Ghede: Honesty has nothing to do with wanting to claim an \"inheritence\" but gullibility does.
Honest people don't try to claim \"inheritance\" from people they're not related to, like this kid did.
All the good scams target people's greed and willingness to do something they know is wrong when they think they won't get caught. The reason this is true is because those people are less likely to balk halfway through, because they've got something to lose, now, by backing out.
So, all the \"good\" scams work best on greedy cheaters? Fine. So \"you can most effectively cheat a dishonest man\" is true, but you have already been upbraided with countless examples of honest people being cheated precisely because of their naivete and trust, and expecting people to be as honest as they are.
@Charles Mousseau: I don't see any \"countless examples.\" I see one example that, as I said, relies on the mark's greed and dishonesty. There's nothing honest about trying to claim property that you know isn't yours.
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Bwahahahahah. Sucker.
@Chuck Notaro: I agree, I mean, this fails the logic test in like 14 places, starting with \"A guy worth 12 million dollars was riding the tube in 2005...\"