Is being a Con Artist Illegal?

He claims to be an expert on dog breeding, and says that this dog is worth hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. The two con artists walk away with a few hundred dollars, and the bar owner gets stuck with a “mutt.” In Neil Gaiman’s novel “American Gods,” two characters discuss this con using a violin instead of a dog. The assumption is he’ll see the chance to buy the dog from the unsuspecting owner for a low price, then sell the valuable dog to this “expert breeder.” He tells the dog expert to come back later, then offers to buy the dog when its owner returns. The dog’s owner sells it, but the “expert” never comes back to buy it. He asks the owner if the dog is for sale because he’ll pay top dollar. The entire scam hinges on the bar owner’s greed.

The answer: most of the people in the pyramid are going to lose their money. Today, companies that call themselves “multi-level marketing” firms are basically pyramid schemes with a fancy name. Only the top two or three levels will see any money (and the recruiter will tell you you’re at the top even if you’re nowhere near it). Eventually, it becomes impossible to recruit enough people to support the pyramid. If each member has to recruit five new victims for the level below, it doesn’t take too many levels before the exponential increase in needed recruits exceeds the entire population of the Earth.

This supposedly satisfies the regulation or shipping company. If the seller doesn’t bother waiting for the check to clear — and many don’t — the con artist will get nearly $5,000 in cash in return for a check that eventually bounces, leaving the victim on the hook for the full amount. We have some supplies left over from the other job, and we’ll have to return them to the supplier either way, so I can use the leftovers to give you a new roof for a really low price. We were doing some work down the street, and I noticed it looks like you could use a new roof.

If the correct card is picked, the victim wins. In reality, the con artist is a master of sleight of hand, able to switch cards without the victim noticing. Friends of the con artist play the game, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, to give the victim the impression that it is a fair game he might win if he has a sharp eye. No matter how carefully he watches, the victim will never pick the right card unless the con artist wants him to.