Con artists use some classic tricks to rope people into their schemes.
You’ve probably seen enthusiastic young people on the sidewalk asking you to support a cause like Greenpeace or Amnesty International. Many people will look the other way and quickly walk by because they know that it will be hard not to give a donation if they stop.
Con artists are aware of this as well. They know that once someone has agreed to a small favor, they’re more likely agree to a larger request later on.
We can see this in a 1966 Stanford University study. Researchers found that stay-at-home mothers were 30 percent more likely to agree to spend two hours answering questions at their home if they had previously agreed to answer just a few questions over the phone.
This is called the foot-in-the-door technique – and for con artists, it is an essential strategy.
For example, around 1900, there was a popular newspaper ad written by someone calling himself “Bill Morrison” and claiming to be a Nigerian Prince looking for pen pals. It turned out that when people took the first step to respond to the ad, they would often grant Morrison’s request to send him $4.00 in exchange for some precious gems.
Naturally, the jewels never arrived and the police eventually discovered that the “prince” was actually a 14-year-old American boy. But the ad shows that once a con artist gets an initial response, they can often take advantage in more substantial ways too.
Another effective technique for taking advantage of the kind-hearted is to start with an unreasonably big request and then scale down.
This is what happened in the 1990s when England’s Lady Worcester was hosting a charity auction for ethical pig farming. She was approached by an ambitious con artist who claimed to be a nobleman and invited her to be a guest at his home in Monaco.
She refused the invitation but, during the auction, she accepted his $4,000 check for a bronze pig sculpture. She explained that she would have felt guilty refusing him a second time and on a much less extravagant offer.
As you may have guessed, the check never cleared.