Why people fall for confidence tricksters

Greed! Greed! and more Greed! Thats why.

I came across a confidence trickster up close once. Nothing about her indicated that she was one. She was well dressed. She carried herself well. The only thing that gave her away was she couldn’t keep up to her words after a while.

As some of you know, I was in the training business. We conducted conferences for the public as well as in-house coursesÂ for companies. One day, a good looking lady came to my boss and offered her services. She said she could conduct training for companies as well as for our company staff and she was to be paid several thousand dollars a day for her services plus payment for accomodation etc. She was to start off by training the staff. She gave high credentials.

She was very friendly and went out for drinks etc with everyone but she was always late for the “training” sessions and she didn’t “teach” much of anything. In the meantime, she fed my boss with stories about how she was suing our competitor for not paying her. Boss was very happy to hear that. And we paid for her accomodation and fees etc.

One day, our competitor called up to inform us that this lady is a confidence trickster. Boss did not believe it. She said that the competitor was the one being sued by this lady and was just sour grapes. And so we continued to pay for her accomodation and fees etc.

Eventually we managed to find out that she had been going around town cheating on all the training providers and getting free accomodation and several thousand dollars of consultation fees per day but it was a bit late. We had been cheated too of thousands of dollars.

If only boss had listened to the warning from the competitior? What stopped her? Greed of course. And that was the basis in which she was tricked.

Thats the basis of all the get rich quick scams you see, whether on the internet or otherwise. So beware. Don’t be too greedy and you won’t be cheated.

I do wonder why some of these people do it. Like the lady I mentioned. She looked really good. Well dressed, spoke well etc. She could have fooled anyone. Someone who looks so good and speaksÂ well? Why does she want to do this for a living? I am sure she can do better than this??!!


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2 thoughts on “Why people fall for confidence tricksters

  1. Some of these good looking crooks really terrible. They have to stoop so low to make money! And yet… they do not fail… because there are people who’re more greedy… What a cycle.

    You are right. For as long as greed people exist, these crooks will continue to work their charm on them and cheat them.

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