True story, one that happened two days ago, and that I heard from my mom on the phone last night:
My mom lives in a brutalist high-rise building in Zagreb, Croatia.
She goes outside the building two days ago to throw out the trash.
A car pulls up. There are two guys inside. They roll down the window and start speaking to my mom as she is throwing out the trash.
They explain they are Hungarian. And indeed, they are speaking Croatian with the CHAR-acteristic HUN-garian ACC-ent.
“Are you retired?” one of the guys asks.
My mom says yes.
“Great,” he says. “In that case we have a gift for you.” He hands my mom a brochure. It shows fancy sets of kitchenware.
As my mom is looking over the brochure, the other guy gets out and opens up the trunk of the car. “Come take a look” he says.
It’s like a treasure chest in there. There are silver-plated pots, pans, cutlery, knives, all in opened boxes.
The Hungarians explain they were just showing off their wares at a trade show at the big fairgrounds across the street.
“Now we are going to the airport,” they say. But before they go, the boss has tasked them with giving away the samples before they fly out, and to give them away to retired people.
“Would you like?” they ask. “It’s our gift to you. The only condition is you cannot sell these expensive pots and pans, but just use them yourself. By the way, the boxes are heavy. We can take them to the elevator for you.”
My mom is wary. But it looks like treasure.
And here the con men get ahead of themselves. “It’s all free,” they repeat. Just as a token, as something they can show to their boss to prove they have given the stuff away as promised to someone retired, all they ask for in exchange is any bit of old gold. An earring, a small gold chain.
My mom says she has no gold. (I happen to know this is a lie. She has some gold earrings.)
The con men say how one woman in the neighborhood has just given them some gold teeth from her dead husband. They take out a little medicine bottle and actually show the gold teeth.
“I don’t have any gold,” my mom repeats, “and I don’t need the pots and pans.”
“Everything is ok,” the guys insist. “This is a wonderful present!”
“Why not give it to somebody else?” my mom asks.
“We don’t have time,” the con men say. “We have to get to the airport. If you don’t have any gold, do yo you have any new euro? Just one green one? Just so we can prove to our boss that we’ve given the samples away?”
My mom says she’s not interested. She turns and leaves. One of the Hungarians curses under his breath. And the two drive off.
When I talked to my mom, she was mystified by this encounter. “I don’t understand the logic of this offer,” she said.
I don’t either. I don’t know whether these guys were really looking to trade pots and pans for gold… or if they were just looking to rob people of gold without giving over anything… or if they were using this “wonderful present” as a kind of in to get into people’s houses and to properly rob them, way beyond just an old necklace or some gold teeth.
Clearly, this con is a little ham-fisted, and it didn’t work.
But a lot of the elements of a successful con are there. You can find them with a careful reading of the story above, and if you are enterprising, you can apply them to a successful and legitimate business. In the words of David Maurerer, author of The Big Con, the authoritative record of the golden age of con men:
“If confidence men operate outside the law, it must be remembered that they are not much further outside than many of our pillars of society who go under names less sinister. They only carry to an ultimate and very logical conclusion certain trends which are often inherent in various forms of legitimate business.”
Maybe you find this idea shocking or repulsive.
If so, the best I can tell you is to stop reading now. Because I agree with Mauerer. I think there’s a lot to be learned from con men, without crossing over into the illegal or immoral territory in which they operate. A lot that can be applied, profitably, to various forms of legitimate business.
In fact, that’s one of the core ideas behind my new 10 Commandments book, which deals with the commonalities to be found among con men… pickup artists… door-to-door salesmen… copywriters… hypnotists… stage magicians…. and more.
For 10 logical conclusions extracted from all these disciplines: