Confidence Man American

Americans get conned

• “Their admiration for ingenuity and gumption leaves room for
opportunists.”
• P t barnum vs Horatio Alger vs
• https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/07/americans-
con-fraud-balleisen/535281/
 P T Barnum: The Greatest Showman
Phineas Taylor Barnum (/ˈbɑːrnəm/; July 5, 1810 –
April 7, 1891) was an American showman,
businessman, and politician, remembered for
promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding the
Barnum & Bailey Circus (1871–2017)[1] with
James Anthony Bailey. He was also an author,
publisher, and philanthropist, though he said of
himself: "I am a showman by profession ... and all the
gilding shall make nothing else of me."[2] According to
his critics, his personal aim was "to put money in his
own coffers".[2] He is widely credited with coining the
adage "There's a sucker born every minute",[3]
although no evidence has been collected of him
saying this.
Atlantic article
• Fraud is a phenomenon that knows no borders, but American
exceptionalism, as Balleisen shows, includes a special vulnerability to
fraudsters and con artists. As he points out, “Many of the world’s most
expensive and ambitious frauds have occurred in America” because
“openness to innovation has always meant openness to creative
deception.” The country’s lionization of entrepreneurs and inventors
creates tempting opportunities for those trafficking in highly implausible
scenarios. It has made the U.S. home to genuine innovators, from
Thomas Edison to Oprah Winfrey, but it has also facilitated the far-
reaching deceptions and empty promises perpetrated by people like
Bernie Madoff on Wall Street and Elizabeth Holmes in Silicon Valley.
The Confidence-Man in The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville

• While today Melville is rightly considered one of the greatest American novelists, in
his time the Moby-Dick author had little success as a fiction writer. When The
Confidence-Man was published in 1857 to poor sales, bewilderment, and hostility
(“ineffably meaningless and trashy” said one review), Melville gave up on writing for
good. But luckily the novel is still around, because it is a masterful if dense satire
about deception in America. The book takes place on a Mississippi steamboat on
April Fool’s Day where a man sneaks on board and tricks the different passengers
while assuming a variety of guises. The man seems less interested in how to steal
money than devilish (literally?) pleasure of trickery: “Money, you think, is the sole
motive to pains and hazard, deception and devilry, in this world. How much money
did the devil make by gulling Eve?”
• his one dates all the way back to a Mississippi riverboat on April Fool's
Day 1856 -- a very different time in grifting. When a con artist hops
aboard, he assumes a wide variety of identities that expose the
pretenses, hypocrisies, and delusions of his fellow passengers.
• This fictional story taps into themes of optimism, morality, and trust
as a commentary on the dark side of the American Dream.
counterfeit
• Counterfeit is a Reese's Book Club pick that's a female caper for fans
of Hustlers. Ava is a straight-laced Chinese American lawyer whose
picture-perfect life is actually crumbling behind closed doors.
• When she reconnects with an old friend engaged in a counterfeit
scheme that involves importing replicas of luxury handbags, she's
persuaded to join the scheme based largely on her precarious
circumstances, but there will be consequences in this fast-paced,
quick read.
• Cover Story is one of my favorite books of 2022, as well as the inspiration for this
list of books about con artists. I knew I had to pick it up when I heard it described
as Netflix’s "Inventing Anna" and Hulu's "The Dropout" meets Catch Me If You Can.
• When a young and naive aspiring writer begins working as a ghostwriter for a
contributing editor at the magazine where she's interning, life becomes very good
fast. She moves into the editor's suite at the Plaza Hotel and sees stars in their
future, all while drifting away from her family and long-time friends.
• Of course, the editor is hiding a lot of dark secrets to finance their lavish lifestyle,
and I promise you will not be able to put this book down until you reach the
conclusion, which is one of the most shocking I have read to date.
• This jaw-dropping book gets ALL THE STARS from me
• f any one book brought you to this list of books about con artists and scammers,
my guess is that it was My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress. The
true story behind the popular Netflix adaptation "Inventing Anna" this is the
memoir of self-proclaimed German heiress Anna Delvey's young and naive
friend, more than $62,000 had been charged to her credit cards.
• Anna started by gifting Rachel things like lavish dinners and sessions with a
celebrity trainer. Then, when Anna invited Rachel to an all-expenses-paid trip to
Marrakech at the five-star La Mamounia hotel, Rachel jumped at the chance.
But, once they were there, Anna asked Rachel to front the costs, with the
expectation that she would be reimbursed upon their return to the USA.

When Anna never paid up, Rachel's financial stability crumbled

Portrait of a thief
• it of a Thief is hailed as an Ocean's Eleven type of heist, inspired by
the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums.
• A Harvard art history student becomes intrigued when a mysterious
Chinese benefactor reaches out with an offer to recover five priceless
Chinese sculptures that were looted from Beijing centuries earlier. He
leads a crew including a con artist, thief, getaway driver, and hacker in
a thrilling chase that also reveals the complexity of the Chinese
American id
• Talented Mr. Ripley is another one of those stories that always keeps
me coming back, and not just because it's a book set in Italy! Tom
Ripley is a "wannabe" who meets a wealthy industrialist who hires
him to find his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, in Italy and bring him
home.
Wizard of lies Bernie madoff
• The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It … Every Time taps into the
psychology behind scammers and why they succeed, revealing the
common thread amongst everyone from Bernie Madoff to Lance
Armstrong -- confidence.
• I've seen this in play more times than I can count in the courtroom
when I was a lawyer, completely baffled that intelligent judges were
"buying" something I knew to be untrue all based on the confidence
of the attorney presenting the argument. It completely fascinated me,
and I firmly believe that this examination of the concept is the best
way to understand "how" and prevent future cons.
• Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
• Patricia Highsmith stellar career had plenty of highlights—including a
brilliant Hitchcock adaptation of her novel Strangers on a Train—but
her most famous creation is Tom Ripley, a charming confidence man
and serial killer who starred in five of her novels starting with The
Talented Mr. Ripley. Like Delvey, Ripley becomes attracted to the
lavish lifestyle of the super rich. And who can blame him? It beats
working for a living. In the first novel, Ripley uses his skills and smarts
to con his way into the life of the rich playboy Dickie Greenleaf. Then
he kills him and takes over that lif
• The Wizard from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
• You can’t talk about fantasy scammers without talking about the wizard
of Oz. The characters of the novel go on a grand adventure to get the
help of the great and powerful wizard, who appears to Dorothy as a
gigantic head. . .only to find out that he isn’t a wizard at all. He’s just an
old man whose hot air balloon crashed into the magical kingdom.
(Although he does know a thing or two about how appearances can
deceive.) He may be an imposter, but he’s a sweetheart (“Oh, no my
dear. I’m a very good man. I’m just a very bad Wizard.”), who really just
wants to go back to the midwest and work in a circus
• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John
Carreyrou
Huckleberry finn
Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake by Frank W.
Abagnale With Stan Redding
• The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It … Every Time taps into the
psychology behind scammers and why they succeed, revealing the
common thread amongst everyone from Bernie Madoff to Lance
Armstrong -- confidence.
• I've seen this in play more times than I can count in the courtroom
when I was a lawyer, completely baffled that intelligent judges were
"buying" something I knew to be untrue all based on the confidence
of the attorney presenting the argument. It completely fascinated me,
and I firmly believe that this examination of the concept is the best
way to understand "how" and prevent future cons.