'The con', 'the grift', ' the scam', '
the italian agreement' they all mean the same thing and they should
be something that everyone should be more wary of. The reason I
wanted to talk about it was because SOMEONE IS ALWAYS TRYING TO CON
YOU – at the turn of every corner, in the depths of the shadiest
alley ways, and in the most whimsical of puppy adoption shelters.
There is always going to be someone that's gonna want to take you for
all you've got,or give you a puppy. So in light of learning more
about the art of the Con through Hodgman's book I decided to share
with you all one of my experiences with 'the Con'.
After reading about the 'grift', I
became under the impression that it required a little finesse. In
it's most basic form, the Grift, it's essentially trying to make your
'mark' give you his or her money. So technically, it's not actually
stealing because they give you their money. Which is why I'm going to
present you with one of my many experiences with 'the Grift' and I'll
let you be the judge of what it and what is not the way of the
Confidence man.
The gist of the situation is that a
coworker and I decided to go to our local coffee shop for an
afternoon pick me up. As we were settling our debts to our barista
Caesar, I had put down ten dollars to pay for my coffee and my
coworker then proceeded to put down seven dollars. What proceeded
afterwards was him taking the ten dollars and us going on our way.
Did you catch that, because I did immediately although it was quite
clever it I could barely call it a 'grift'. Knowing that my coworker
could pay for both coffees with the $7 he swiped my $10 and pocketed
the extra change.
This is where we got into a little bit
of a spat – I extremely was a alarmed. I wasn't surprised that he
would take my money, but more the idea that he called it a 'grift'.
He just swiped the change from the counter like a common thug,
hooligan, and/or rapscallion, and then he had the gall to tell me
that I was a victim of the 'grift'? While I'd like to sway you into
believing this wasn't just your common everyday hoodwinking. I'll
leave it for you to decide. Because I guess this is merely my opinion
on the subject matter.
On that note, I now present to you a
challenge, because from in my experience it is always better to be
the “Conner” than the “Connie”. We're all too familiar with
the 3-card Montes, Bar Grifts, Nigerian Princes, etc. So I would like
you to go out there and innovate your own 'Short Con' – those
are the kinds of 'Cons' that tend to yield a small amount of profit,
but require an even smaller time.
I wouldn't want you people to get yourselves in too deep without
knowing what you were doing. I present you this challenge because
just want you guys (and gals) to just get a little taste of the Grift
– just the tip of it, just to see what it feels like.
Now I know coming up with a brand new
and innovative con like this could be difficult, because the
variables and scenarios you'll put yourselves in can be very broad.
First, you should always be prepared and you should have the 'Con'
ready at all times, even before you find your mark. To give you an
idea you should figure out the details of the your 'con'. So to
narrow your fields for the details of your 'con' choose a place,
something you like and something you hate to the fields of your
'con' – the person will be your mark. You'll use those fields to
construct the backgrounds of your 'con' so you'll have a story ready
for when you approach you 'mark'. You should also practice your story
over and over again to get it down right, because if you can't
believe your lie neither will your mark.
Here's a simple example taken randomly
and by random I just asked the person closest to me:
Place: Park
Something you like: Bikes
Something you dislike: Rum
The Scenario:
- You're in a park and you see a simpleton coming towards you on a bike.
- Put water on your face to make yourself seem worked up and exhausted.
- You halt them where they ride, and seem like you have just been running.
- Ask them “Excuse me kind ____”, but did you hear that Rum prices are going WAY UP!!!!” (It's best to say the number of exclamation points to your mark, so they know just how serious you're being)
- They listen intriguingly “ You see the Dominican Rum Mines have imploded due to human error and now all the rum tastes of rocks”
- “Go on..” says your mark
- You respond “Well you see not all liquor stores have gotten wind of this yet, and if we act on it now we can make a ton of money.”
- Now visibly grateful for this information you present him with a plan “I was sorry to stop you like this but I just had to tell someone because I've decided to comb the city for liquor stores that haven't heard the news yet. The reason I stopped you was because I've run out of money and while I was headed back to my Rum stock on east 48th and I found another liquor right across the street”
- Here's where it gets tricky because now you really need to sell it to your mark on this proposition “In exchange for you $20 dollars I'll give you this bottle of rum, which face value is $20 but after the rum prices sky rocket it'll easily be worth $150. I'll use that money to buy $20 dollars worth of rum from the liquor store.” – If you want to sell this more you can create a fake Dominican news clippings of the mine explosions.
- Now what you should realize is that this is a terrible deal on your part because in hindsight you're basically trading $20 for $20. Now this scenario can fork into several directions
- The first result of this is that realizing that it's an even trade, he could give you more money to get more and split the spoils. Seeing that you were willing to give him some rum to get into good graces he'll believe you and would be willing split the profits of his investment. But little did they know that you'll run off with the profits....
- You could immediately stop yourself and realize that it's a bad idea and often him a percentage in your current rum take for whatever cash he's willing to give you. You give him a plan where you split up and buy out the neighborhood's rum supply using his money, because you'll cover more ground in the end. Afterwards you tell him to meet up at your rum stash. But little did they know that the rum stash doesn't exist...
- Nothing changes and you get the “even” exchange, but little did they know that the Rum is actually a bottle of your mother's homemade Iced Tea...
- He refuses your offer, because little did you know that they were a bike cop...
I just presented you with four possible
scenarios, where in only three of those cases your plan will go awry.
A plan working 75% of the time is pretty good nowadays and I'll take
it. It was also extremely easy to plan and create, it's not like you
needed a degree in creative writing to come up with something as
ingenious as this.
- It's not stealing if they give it to
you for free, Good Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment