Easy Cons

Why are cons so successful? Why don’t people back out when they begin to get suspicious?

• Wishful thinking

  Even if they think the odds are slim that the con is legit, wishful thinking makes victims hang in there.

• Deadbeat thinking

  Cons always promise that you will get something for nothing or almost nothing. Getting something for nothing has huge appeal to many people, even when it is almost surely a con. People will kid themselves it must be legit even if they can’t work out exactly how the con works.

• Peer pressure

  Friends reassure them the con is legit because they too hope it is and are actually just reassuring themselves.

• Flattery

  Recall the Emperor’s New Clothes where the con men flattered the emperor convincing him that people taken in by the con were cleverer than others.

• Fear of being rude

  What if they confront the con artists and they are legit? How embarrassing!

• Cutting your losses

  If you cut your loses, you must confront how stupid you were and you must take your loss now. If you postpone, you can hope all will turn out ok.

• Lack of proof

  If you can’t definitely prove this is a con, you can’t very well confront the con artists.

• Pride

  Even when you are sure you have been had, you are ashamed to publicly admit it.

• Gullibility

  So long as the con man is smarter than the mark, he can feed them a line that holds them for a while longer.

The Church’s Con

A church is an ancient, polished, sophisticated con. The con men promise eternal bliss and threaten eternal torment to extort money. The con is so old and so successful it is never prosecuted and even atheists generally do not recognise it as a con game. The clergy are a privileged criminal class. The church scam has promise of huge reward like a pyramid scheme and promise of magical dire calamity on defection like a chain letter. To play, you must donate money supposedly for God, which, of course, is nonsense. The Church staff spend it. Televangelists are notorious for the frivolous luxuries they spend it on (art, multiple jets, limousines and mansions) In addition, marks must also do a number of easy, silly, random things, like eat fish on Friday or pray to distract them from the basic con.

~ Roedy (born:1948-02-04 age:68)