Hustle

[Cyphermage]

CBC has just picked up the first season of "Hustle," a BBC production about an eclectic group of con artists who pull off a series of stings.

The cast includes Robert Vaughn, of "Man From Uncle" fame, as the group's mentor.

Now for a tiny quibble.

The victims are "marks." And the First Rule of the Con is...

"You can never cheat an honest man."

As skeptics, we are of course aware that not only can honest men and women be cheated, but they can be cheated quite spectacularly in a wide variety of ways. Our own efforts to dissuade people from being conned might be likened to an attempt to bail the ocean with a teaspoon.

I'm sure the show is very entertaining, but I find its tag line suggesting that victims of flim-flam had it coming because of their moral failings, slightly annoying.

Does anyone else share my opinion?

[Curnir]

CBC has just picked up the first season of "Hustle," a BBC production about an eclectic group of con artists who pull off a series of stings.

The cast includes Robert Vaughn, of "Man From Uncle" fame, as the group's mentor.

Now for a tiny quibble.

The victims are "marks." And the First Rule of the Con is...

"You can never cheat an honest man."

As skeptics, we are of course aware that not only can honest men and women be cheated, but they can be cheated quite spectacularly in a wide variety of ways. Our own efforts to dissuade people from being conned might be likened to an attempt to bail the ocean with a teaspoon.

I'm sure the show is very entertaining, but I find its tag line suggesting that victims of flim-flam had it coming because of their moral failings, slightly annoying.

Does anyone else share my opinion?

Read 'Going Postal' by Terry Pratchett.

[Lamuella]

Read 'Going Postal' by Terry Pratchett.

Seconded.

Most of the people saying you can never cheat an honest man are actually in the process of doing so when they say it.

[Strider1974]

Read 'Going Postal' by Terry Pratchett.

Agreed, apart from anything else, it is highly amusing and well worth the read.

[IXP]

Don't take this pharse literally, it refers to the fact that con games usually involve making the mark believe they are in on a scheme to cheat a third party, hence and honest man will not bite.

Defintion of con game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick)

[Cyphermage]

Don't take this pharse literally, it refers to the fact that con games usually involve making the mark believe they are in on a scheme to cheat a third party, hence and honest man will not bite.

Defintion of con game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick)

419 schemes frequently make use of this ploy. Because the victim has been made to do something legally problematical, like represent himself as the lost kin of some wealthy foreigner who died in a plane crash, the scammer is insulated against his victim going to the police.

I think it's a bit of a stretch, however, to suggest that people who fall victim to such schemes are victims only of their own dishonesty.

Many other schemes, like those that rely on checks "clearing" several days before bouncing, don't require dishonesty on the part of the victim, and if a person is poor, and it looks like the opportunity of a lifetime, I wouldn't necessarily call it greed either.

Another issue is that the scammer has refined his scheme on hundreds of victims, whereas each individual victim is encountering it for the very first time. So the scammer has already fine-tuned his witty retorts to any objection the victim could conceivably come up with.

In the end, as the old saying goes, the partridge and the fox do not have equal ability to eat one another.

[Meffy]

I don't think it's too far a stretch to say that, as a general rule, a con will find unusually greedy marks provide a better return... but that they're not as easy to find as ordinary, run-of-the-mill unthinkers.

[Jeff Corey]

It's probably hardest to con a person who is honest, not greedy (or desparate) and smart.
Take the State lotteries. NY State Quick Draw pays out 50 cents per dollar on picking one number. There is a reason the opportunities to playing abound in stores in poor communities and bars. Places where the old illegal numbers game flourished, until the competition moved in, along with taxes on your winnings.

[Cyphermage]

It's probably hardest to con a person who is honest, not greedy (or desparate) and smart.
Take the State lotteries. NY State Quick Draw pays out 50 cents per dollar on picking one number. There is a reason the opportunities to playing abound in stores in poor communities and bars. Places where the old illegal numbers game flourished, until the competition moved in, along with taxes on your winnings.

State lotteries are definitely de facto taxation of people who can't do math.