Anatomy of a Con Artist

Anatomy of a Con Artist

1.

The 14 Red Flags Con Artists Wave

I’ve spent years analyzing the red flags con artists unintentionally wave that signal who they are. I’ve given them names. And throughout this book, I will show you how they appear in real life—in every single con. That way, when you see them waving from a distance in your own life, you will cross the street and avoid getting scammed. Or you’ll be able to point them out to a loved one who’s in the cross-hairs of a con artist.

Red Flag #1: “I Just Want to Help.”

I’ve been fortunate enough to spend some time interviewing former FBI criminal profiler Candice DeLong—a truly amazing woman. She taught me about the concept of a “rescue merchant.”

A lot of con artists are what the FBI calls rescue merchants. They suddenly show up when there’s a problem or a disaster or unrest. Regular people would flee these dire situations, but professional con artists gravitate toward them. They’ve learned that if they can offer a solution to a major problem someone’s having (or what seems like a solution but is really just a lie), the person in trouble will focus exclusively on the offered solution, and it’ll blind them to everything else—ultimately enabling the con artist to scam them.

The woman who scammed me, Mair Smyth, was a rescue merchant. She showed up at a time of turmoil in the community where I live and she offered a solution. And we all fell for it, hard.

Admittedly, I fell harder than most. Her solution was her “in,” and it worked like a charm.

You need to be suspicious of a stranger who suddenly shows up offering to help. Your inclination is to like them (even love them!) and be grateful to them. But those are the precise feelings a sophisticated con artist will weaponize against you in order to bleed you dry.

Red Flag #2: Too Kind, Too Quick

You meet someone new. It could be a new boyfriend or new girlfriend, a new co-worker or a new neighbor. They’re so kind, so thoughtful, so sweet. They’re always paying for meals, giving you gifts, going out of their way to be as kind as possible. You can’t help but like them—or even love them, on a truncated timetable, because they seem like the nicest person you ever met.

That is a major red flag.

The thing you need to keep in mind is that love is the most powerful force in the universe. I’m not waxing poetic here. It’s just a fact of life. You will do anything for the person you love. People kill for love all the time, die for love all the time. Professional con artists know this, and they rely on it. They trade on it. It’s how they get you to do what they want you to do.

When a con artist meets a new mark, their mission is to get that mark to love them—or love “the cause” they’ve invented for the mark. That’s because when you’re making decisions based on love, they win. You’ll give them your money, your property, your treasured items. It happens thousands of times every day.

Red Flag #3: Drama, Drama, Drama

Once a con artist has gained your love, your admiration, and your trust, the drama starts.

Look, bad things happen to people all the time. People get cancer, have a death in the family, have a major car accident, have an angry brother or sister or cousin trying to “get” them. But all these bad things don’t happen to the same person at the same time—unless they’re a sophisticated con artist trying to distract you and trying to influence you.

Also, if you happen to have any drama whatsoever in your own life already, they will use that drama to manipulate you. If you have a crazy boyfriend stalking you, the con artist will tell you they saw them drive by your house yesterday.

Mair apparently “roofied” one of her other victims whom she met up with at a Los Angeles bar one night. Then she pretended she had gotten “roofied” too. This terrifying experience bonded the victim to Mair very quickly, in a way nothing else could have. It was a trauma bond, and it was powerful. Ultimately, it helped Mair scam that victim out of thousands of dollars. Drama in and of itself is not a red flag, but drama mixed with the other red flags is an absolute indicator that you are in the midst of chaos being deliberately created by a sophisticated con artist.

Red Flag #4: Isolation

This one’s a biggie. For a con artist to successfully scam you, they need to be able to lure you away from people who might talk you out of going along with their scam. And it’s remarkably easy to do.

Mair tricked me into believing that my neighbor was a criminal on the run from authorities. So I avoided her. She then convinced my neighbor that I was mentally ill and violent. So my neighbor avoided me. That way she could scam us both using different stories, and we were none the wiser until months later when I started my investigation. Even then, this neighbor was hard to get ahold of. She was actively avoiding me. She blocked my cellphone number and blocked me on social media. She was clearly terrified of me. I had to create a new email address to send her court records and criminal background checks so I could prove to her that Mair was the evil one here. Then I had to get other victims I had discovered to call this woman and explain to her that they had been victimized by Mair as well. That did the trick. But it took longer than it should have.

Anyone telling you not to talk to this person or that person is about the biggest red flag there is. It’s a very effective tool for a “working” con artist.

Red Flag #5: “I’m Better Than You”

Most con artists are narcissists. They care only about themselves. They are incapable of caring about anyone else.

But they’re really great at faking it. When you first meet them, they seem to care about you and about a lot of things, and they appear to be kind, generous, and loving people. But that is only an act—one that they have perfected over the course of their entire lives.

Likely when they were children, social cues and dropped-jaw reactions from others taught them at a very young age that something was inherently wrong with them. Something was “off” or different. They weren’t like their peers. They were cold and they seemed uncaring. People didn’t like that and didn’t like them. But to their credit, con artists are super smart and quick studies. Over the years they cleverly learn how to cover up and compensate for their personality deficits. So by the time you meet a con artist in adulthood, they’re a perfected apparition of everything they’ve learned they need to be to impress you, or anybody. Then the scam is on.

A professional con artist wants you to be impressed by them. They need you to be impressed by them. In fact, their con relies on it, because you need to think the world of them in order for their confidence tricks to work on you.

So after they get you to like them—or, God forbid, love them—they have to get you to respect them and ideally be in awe of them. To achieve that, they’ll essentially brag about themselves. Backdoor brags. Front door brags. They’ll show off. They’ll paint a picture for you that they are the wealthiest, or most talented, or most connected person you ever met. They want you to feel lucky or blessed to know them, because that feeling goes a long way in gaining your confidence in them and paving the way for them to get their hands on your money.

It’s worth noting here—and forgive me if you know this already—that the term con artist is actually short for confidence artist. These people are brilliant at engineering ways to gain your confidence so they can have their way with you and your bank account.

Red Flag #6: Technology

How many times has someone held up their cellphone for you to see and said, “Look what this guy/girl/my cousin/boss/parent just texted me”? Did you ever think this person had created a fake online texting account so they could text themselves—as these various characters—to trick you into believing a story?

How many times have you spoken to someone on the phone claiming to be your landlord, or someone calling from the phone company or the electric company? Did you ever for a second think that it wasn’t any of those people, that it was actually someone you knew who knew you really well and was calling you using a voice-changing app on their phone to disguise their voice to get you to believe whatever it was they were telling you while sounding like various other characters?

Today’s working con artist relies heavily on technology. They’ll show you text messages from someone that tell a story. They’ll share with you emails from someone to back that story up. You’ll even get text messages, emails, and phone calls from people who you believe are real. But they’re not. They’re all just clever creations of a professional con artist. These are things you never think about, but in this day and age you need to.