A con game is when someone intentionally misrepresents facts to gain another person’s trust and transfer money or property. Scammers can be anyone, including professionals and trustworthy individuals. Short cons aim to scam small amounts of money, while long cons target large sums or personal information. Examples include gambling, psychic cheating, fake stories, and official-looking bank notices. Victims are often exploited due to human nature traits such as honesty, naivety, greed, and vanity.
A con game, also known as a confidence trick, hustle or scam, is the act of intentionally misrepresenting facts in an attempt to gain another person’s trust. This is usually done so that the scammed person, or brand, transfers money or property to the scam artist. Victims of scammers come from all walks of life and are often exploited by some of the most common characteristics of human nature, such as honesty and naivety, greed and vanity.
While many people think of scammers as criminal underworld-type characters, many present themselves as professionals, trustworthy people, or nice individuals who are down on their luck. The cheat game performed by these people typically falls into one of two categories: the short cheat or the long cheat. Short cons are usually small operations that aim to scam the brand out of a small amount of money. Long crooks are often used to scam the brand out of a large sum of money or personal information that can be used to access credit card and bank accounts.
Some of the first confidence tricks are short cons that focus on the scammer quickly winning the target’s trust or engaging them in a bet that the victim is confident they can win. A short con game often involves gambling or psychic cheating, tricking a cashier into giving too much money, or getting a person to buy a cheap product for more than it’s worth. Some of these games also consist of the con artist presenting a made-up story to win the sympathy of the brand. An example of this is the scammer trying to sell magazines to raise money for a worthy cause that doesn’t exist.
The long con game also has a long history. One of the most common of these scams involves an official-looking bank notice, telling the brand that it needs to provide personal information to help resolve a banking issue. Lotteries, medical and product scams are also familiar patterns. This type of scam usually offers the brand ample wealth, good health, or a product they won’t be able to live without. Unfortunately, the brand is never given what it was promised and is usually out with quite a bit of money.
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