Putting the Dense in Confidence

In David Mamet's terrific film House of Games, a con man played by Joe Mantegna explains to a psychiatrist the secret of his trade. See, it's called a confidence scheme not because the victim (or mark) puts his confidence in the perpretrator. It's because the con man pretends to put his confidence in the mark.

In other words, you get fooled because you think you're getting away with something. You're not paying attention to all the angles because you're so focused on beating the system.

This point is illustrated perfectly in this ridiculous scam e-mail I have just received. It's from quite possibly the worst man on the planet. This guy plies his trade with all the subtlety and grace of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.

The e-mail purports to come from a bank auditor in London, a man named George Carter. Mr. Cah-ter assures me that he has come across a floating account containing $30 million, the estate of a man who died along with his entire family in an airplane crash.

Remember that the total amount involved is Thirty million United States Dollars only [$30,000.000.00] and I wish to transfer this money immediately into a safe foreigners account abroad. But I don't know any foreigner; I am only contacting you as a foreigner because this money cannot be approved to a local person here, but to a foreigner who has information about the account, which I shall give to you upon your positive response. I am revealing this to you with believe in God that you will never let me down in this project, you are the first and the only person that am contacting for this project, so please I urge you reply me urgently so that I will inform you the next step to take Immediately.

If this sound at all reasonable to you, I'd like to once again remind you that subscription to Crushed by Inertia costs only $30 a month. I accept PayPal, Mastercard or hot, wet, steamy cash.

But did you catch the "confidence" part of the plot? He's pretending to watch out for me, as if he's concerned I'm going to steal the money from him. And he repeats this concept later on.

MOST IMPORTANTLY AND FOR SECURITY REASON'S, I WOULDN'T LIKE AN INVOLVMENT OF ANY THIRD PARTY THAN YOU FOR CONFIDENTIALITY MATTERS. ALL I NEED FROM YOU IS YOUR CONTACT PHONE\FAX NUMBERS SO THAT I CAN CALL YOU AND DETAIL YOU IMMEDIATELY FOR URGENT ACTION.

Again, he's feigning concern about how I will respond, when really he's just hoping I'm dumb enough to fall for this and turn over my bank account information. At one point in the e-mail, he even states that an empty bank account would suffice (but have you ever heard of a bank letting you open a savings account with nothing in it...me neither...)

So, anyway, just as a helpful proviso, don't ever ever ever trust random e-mails from strangers about anything. Whether it's dumb urban legends, misquoted stand-up routines or various renditions of the famed Nigerian money scam (of which this is a rather generic variation), they're never useful, informative or worth your valuable time.