CONFIDENCE TRICK AKA 419!

I have been a lazy blogger and its all my fault and I am sorry. That said I just have to blame it on moving back home and the kind of high pressure job I got. I am currently on 'sick' leave in London, (meaning I am in ownersip of my own time), and therefore hope to be inspired for new stories.

Lets start with this: CONFIDENCE TRICK AKA 419

From Wiki: Con may http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrefer to: Confidence trick, also known as con, scam, or flim flam
A confidence trick is also known as a con game, con, scam, grift, hustle, bunko, bunco, swindle, flimflam, gaffle, or bamboozle. The intended victims are known as marks. The perpetrator of a confidence trick is often referred to as a confidence man or woman, con man or woman, con artist or grifter. When accomplices are employed, they are known as shills. Confidence tricks exploit typical human characteristics such as greed, dishonesty, vanity, honesty, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, desperation and naïveté. As such, there is no consistent profile of a confidence trick victim; the common factor is simply that the victim relies on the good faith of the con artist. Victims of investment scams tend to show an incautious level of greed and gullibility, and many con artists target the elderly, but even alert and educated people may be taken in by other forms of confidence trick.[2]

Shills, also known as accomplices, help manipulate the mark into accepting the con man's plan. In a traditional confidence trick, the mark is led to believe that he will be able to win money or some other prize by doing some task. The accomplices may pretend to be strangers who have benefited from performing the task in the past.

A greedy or dishonest mark may attempt to out-cheat the con artist, only to discover that he or she has been manipulated into losing from the very beginning.

Now that the education bit is over, I will tell you about a time when a good friend almost got scammed, the only reason she escaped it was because the scammer mentioned church. He should have stuck to worldly promises...Like getting her a rich husband that would carry her round the world!

No, not that church cleared her eyes....Church made her loose interest in the scam.

It was early morning, She was sent to buy bread for breakfast. Met some men dressed in suits, in a not very great looking car. They said they came from America to minister in Nigeria and couldn't find the location of the church, heck, didn't know the church. The
next second another guy (shills) stopped and exclaimed that he had seen them on tv and told them where the church was. The same man told her they were great men of God who heal and perform miracles. They said they wanted to pray for all of them in the car as a way of thanks for assisting them but felt she (my friend) would be to embarrassed to kneel on the road in the street, so this shills (as defined above) the passing man, said he knew a place. My friend said she would prefer something like a present, they looked at her with shock. Well she waited for the present. They told her she needed prayers more becuase her fathers relatives were trying to kill her and would that in 7 days time. The mad woman (my friend) told them to wait so she can call her daddy as he needed to hear about his people. As soon as she brought out her cell, the passing man jumped into the car and they sped off.

How low can these people go!
Ever experienced a confidence trick? Please share :))

Have a great one!

p.s: The picture has nothing to do with the post o but then when have they ever!! matched?