7 ms·

How I became a con artist (2010)

86 points by gscott 13y ago

TrainedMonkey 13y ago
So apparently people believe when you lie to them if you sound convincing. Frankly I feel I should be disgusted by this kind of behavior, but I am just numb. That numbness makes me sad, where did my innocence go?
- r00fus 13y ago
  Simply human nature. Cultural programming has de-attuned you to this fact because we make laws and social custom that mostly keep these things in check (well, except for those 1% folk). I'm not surprised, I'm glad I live in a society where it's so uncommon to be scammed that it disgusts you so.
addedlovely 13y ago
This is so so sad. I value truth over money.
tehwebguy 13y ago
I was waiting for a slightly more meaningful enlightening or moral awakening at the end of this article, maybe some kind of realization that the world isn't full of "good people" and "bad people" but that everyone is capable of basic crimes against one another like stealing stuff.
nutball 13y ago
Yeah, get it! Shoplifting is also worthy challenge, though, that I feel the author underrates. Scams and shoplifting are two ways toward the same goal: exiting the store with goods without paying for them or getting caught. Sticking stuff in your pants or purse is a pretty simple move, sure, but it has its subtleties. And plus there's a bunch of complexities to worry about like security tags, snitching customers, loyal employees, security guards, loss prevention officers, and cameras.
- jaekwon 13y ago
  I'd made a faraday cage with tin foil in my backpack to thwart the tag alarm system, and tested it out on a large retail electronics store. So yeah, maybe it doesn't require the social skills needed for the author's cons, but it did require technical skills. That said, that was a long time ago when I was a troubled kid. Now I'm a voluntaryist, and I see that stealing doesn't fit with my set of values. Perhaps I picked up some valuable lessons while experimenting with anti-values. As for the author, it seems that he never really grew out of it. It's clear that he derives pleasure from cleverly conning people. It's a shame, because that mental energy could be used for good instead of what amounts to scummy behavior. There is so much more pie to be had when you can bake it yourself, rather than having to con it from others.
davidw 13y ago
Trust is hugely important in society. If you have to stop and verify every single thing, it's hugely expensive, which tends to make everyone worse off. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(social_sciences)#Economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(social_sciences)#Economi...
- comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
  Yup. Our choices have consequences, and he put a lot of effort into making the world a crappier place so he could have a bit more stuff, most of which he probably did not actually need. But the author did even realize half of it. A cashier demoted here or docked pay there is only the tip of the iceberg. The bigger cost is how every manager of every corporate store he scammed was put under pressure to look at all employees as insects, for fear that a few bad apples were running a side business doing favors for friends.
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  I once heard that described as "Trust is a common good," which really rang true to me. I'd go as far as to say that the first world's biggest asset is the collective trust it has accrued over the centuries.
  - javert 13y ago
    This is a bad way to look at it, because you're saying, inmplicitly, either sacrifice for the "common good" and be good, or help yourself and be evil. The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest. So there is an argument to be made for behaving honestly that relies on self-interest instead of calling for self-sacrifice. That is a much more appealing argument, and one I can actually buy into.
    - thecage411 13y ago
      "The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest." Do you have any proof this is true? I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example. Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the premise?
bryan_rasmussen 13y ago
You know anyone could shoot a man in Reno just to watch them die but it takes a real super genius like me to talk at them until they just commit suicide.
how2return 13y ago
I've done this several times while being completely honest about what I'm doing... returning gifts without a gift receipt probably from a different store. Step 1) Find two employees who are polar personalities. Step 2) Attempt to return the item while being completely honest about what you're doing. (books/software/clothes/whatever) Step 3) Get denied. Step 4) Try again with the second employee and mention how the first employee didn't let you.
- colinbartlett 13y ago
  I don't understand. So the second employee magically helps you because the first wouldn't? To make him jealous or something? What's the con here?
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    The enemy of my enemy; people will do things they shouldn't just because they don't like the other person.
austenallred 13y ago
I had a really hard time reading this, mostly because it's difficult for me to separate out in my mind when arbitrage becomes theft. For example, in my teens I found a hack in the eBay search algorithm. The algorithm was very simple; it simply scanned the titles. So if I input '32GB Apple iPod Black' it would return everything with those keywords. If, however, I typed in 'iPod' it would return millions of results and be unusable. Not everybody realized this, however, so there were plenty of items just titled "iPod." I ended up generating a 2-page long search that stared with iPod and negated all non-relevant terms (i.e. 'ipod -headphones -case -protector -battery' etc.). After entering in that term I would be given a page of everything only titled 'iPod,' and could pick them up for $50-100 and flip them the next day for $250-300. That was a good living for a 15-year-old kid. When my mom began to probe after seeing iPods arriving at the house day after day, she started to question me, and we had a long philosophical discussion about whether or not what I was doing was "right." It was legal, of course, but was it right? - this was the much more important question in the eyes of my mom. She felt it was unethical and not providing value - I disagreed, and she allowed me to continue and not go against my conscience. After a few interesting twists and turns the eBay hack turned into a multi-million dollar, off-eBay Broadway ticket brokerage firm. (We scalped broadway tickets at scale.) I provided no real value other than buying tickets at face value a long time in advance, and marking the prices up 3-4x last minute. I justified it by saying wall-street traders don't provide much value either. I let people wait to buy tickets, and let Capitalism decide who would get the tickets instead of who got word of the shows first or who cared the most. I appeased my conscience by convincing myself that I took the risk away from the venues, who could have waited and charged more, and profited thereby, but either didn't know it or were bound into agreements with artists/shows/etc. I still don't know how truthful that was, but eventually I left to try and start something that will actually benefit people, not just redistribute things and make money. I wonder now if I was on a slippery slope and got off at just the right moment. I've seen a lot of my ticket broker/scalper friends end up trying to swindle casinos, get caught up in credit card fraud, etc; it becomes easy to feel smarter-than-thou when you're making bunches of money off of others' perceived negligence. But at the same time I'm not the kind of successful where I can look back and say, "I was dumb and broke the rules and made some mistakes, but look, I made it now!" It's tempting to slip back into a world where you're not benefiting anybody and profiting thereby. So in that sense it's hard to separate my motives then from that of the author. Making money while helping people is really, really, really hard. The moral of the story: It's difficult for me, at times, to discern when a "cool hack" becomes "criminal theft."
JPKab 13y ago
I find the fact that the mother who owned the thrift store would just hand donations that were "designer" to her kid immoral enough. When I donate to a thrift shop, I'm doing so knowing that I'll help people be employed there, and also help out folks who need clothes for a decent price. People who do this stuff always try to rationalize it, but at the end of the day they are stealing from all of us by passing the costs of their behavior onto us through higher prices.
- ImprovedSilence 13y ago
  >> and also help out folks who need clothes for a decent price. In your mind, does that mean it's immoral for someone well off to shop at a thrift store?
- driverdan 13y ago
  A consignment shop is not a thrift store.
javert 13y ago
Someone who is truly self-interested will strive to live in harmony with reality and with other people, instead of trying to constantly deceive and manipulate. They will focus on producing real value they can trade, instead of the less efficient strategy of stealing from others. In other words, do you think the author was happy? I don't. Religion and altruism teach that your self-interest (at least in this world) is in opposition to morality. You can either help yourself, OR be good, but not both. The truth is that they are the same thing and you can do both.
- pasquinelli 13y ago
  "Someone who is truly self-interested will strive to live in harmony with reality and with other people, instead of trying to constantly deceive and manipulate." why? "They will focus on producing real value they can trade, instead of the less efficient strategy of stealing from others." less efficient in what way? "In other words, do you think the author was happy? I don't." i do. well, actually i really don't know, but nothing in the text really made me think he wasn't. "The truth is that they are the same thing and you can do both." i'll be sure to keep that in mind. it sounds so convenient.
philthesong 13y ago
This is more like being cheap
arjie 13y ago
It's funny, but this (seemingly blind) trust is why I like shopping in the Western world. As someone who never abuses it, it makes my life a lot easier. By contrast, in India everyone's tried every variant of this scam. The net result? Shopkeepers don't accept returns and buying things is a combative experience. I guess what I'm trying to say is "This is why we can't have nice things".
- bruceb 13y ago
  So true. Not even western world, the US. In my travels I have never found a place that is as open and easy to return stuff as America. Even the same company has different return policies depending on the country. H&M has 30 day return for cash with tag & receipt. H&M Brussels will not give your money back, only credit. It might even be only 14 days their I forget. We pay less of a risk premium in the US. Some of these scams will drive that up.
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    We pay less of a risk premium in the US. Some of these scams will drive that up. Yup. Thanks to the scammers, even REI has limited their return policy: http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021116265_reireturnsxml.html http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021116265_r...
    - f7t7ft7 13y ago
      Except that REI isn't going from a normal return policy to a draconian return policy. It's going from the most unbelievably lenient and forgiving policy to something that's still far more lenient and forgiving than anyone else offers. I don't think it's quite a fair comparison.
gtz58 13y ago
The justification people have for their actions is interesting. The mother thought she was "outfoxing" the rich, the writer gave himself rules to follow. I can feel a little empathy for being vulnerable to tricking yourself like this.
suprgeek 13y ago
There seems to be a suspiciously large dose of "How smart I was to exploit the trusting nature of people" even if he makes it clear that what he was doing was illegal. If I had to guess, the moral compass is not truly reset - I see a future ether as a CEO or a Wall Street Hedge fund trader for this person.
sfx 13y ago
I once switched my laptop hard drive with a portable one bought at the store, by removing the portable's case and swapping that drive with my laptop's. I then had the new 500gb one in my laptop and an old 120gb in a new portable housing case. I joked to my friend who was with me that I could just return the now 120gb drive back to the store no questions asked. He told me I was an idiot if I didn't; he didn't think of it as stealing as I did. Unfortunately I don't think that mindset is uncommon with our society. What's worse is being moral can be seen as weak and stupid by those who don't see the long term benefits of having a moral population. (Probably aided by the con man often glorified as extremely clever and smart in media, when often he's just taking advantage of people's good will e.g. Catch Me If You Can, Matchstick Men, maybe 21 and Oceans 11. But people love someone smarter than everyone else so they want to emulate that) On the bright side most of the brighter people I know have good ethics.
jezebel6 13y ago
I hope he gets caught one day and has to spend a couple weeks in jail. Grifting scumbag.
callmeed 13y ago
While it's easy to get shocked at some of the author's behavior, I personally don't think it's out of the ordinary. People lie to save money or avoid blame. Examples: - I have a friend who works at an LA Wal-Mart doing returns. You'd be blown away at the things people will bring back. My favorite is a raw turkey post-Christmas that someone didn't cook all the way. - People lie to tech support all the time. "Oh I don't know what happened. I never logged in yesterday!" ... actually, the log file says you did. - My sister-in-law works at a bank. The stories people will tell to fight overdraft fees are hilarious.
driverdan 13y ago
Pulling a con is very similar to being a hacker (the good or bad kind, your choice). You find weaknesses in a system and exploit them. Finding and exploiting them becomes a rush and pulling the con off can be just as rewarding as the financial gains (or more so). Creating a persona and successfully acting it out becomes almost an addiction. Back when I was into fraud I was always looking for loopholes and weaknesses. Most of them I didn't exploit because the risk / reward ratio wasn't good enough. But there were still plenty of "good" ones. Store doesn't check serial numbers on returns? Buy a new item and return a broken one in its place. Store lets you do self-checkout on high ticket items? Use stolen credit cards cloned onto gift cards. Mail drop photocopies your ID? Make a fake ID with matching foreground and background contrast so the B&W copy looks black. Get online access to someone's bank or credit card with no additional info? Change the mailing address and request a new card (and PIN).
yetanotherphd 13y ago
The perverse ethics of the author were apparent from the start "[I operated in a time] before you had to show ID, sign a slip of paper and answer a battery of questions from the always skeptical supervisor." The offended tone of the author is hardly appropriate given that this batter of questions was designed precisely to prevent scammers like the author, and indeed made necessary by people like him. Anyway, theft is theft whether it's against a large corporation or an individual. I can understand that people don't feel sympathetic towards large corporations since they never seem to be criminally liable when they break the law. However the answer is surely to enforce the law equally no matter who the criminal or victim is?
cftm 13y ago
The entire tone of the article is rather off-putting. Through portions of the article there tended to be this sense of having pulled one over on corporate America, when that is hardly reality. One data point: Nordstroms. They will take everything in returns. For them, customer lifetime value add of a hassle free customer experience outweighs edge cases like the author who take advantage of the system. I'm sure there were many instances of the author taking advantage of the bureaucracy of large corporations, but that's no particular feat of genius- that's a byproduct of bureaucratic systems. A writer whose name currently escapes me said something to the effect of, "Love your stories, but never believe them".
marincounty 13y ago
I noticed a few years ago how much information, and questions companies wanted for returns. Well--now I only buy exactly what I need. It's just not worth the agrivation. In all honestly, I don't like shopping anymore. I'm tired of being photographed when I walk in a store. I'm tired of receipts that disappear if you put them in your pocket.(thermal paper--and yes, I think they know the receipts will disappear, and the customer will forget all their transactions are on a database). I'm tired of lifetime guarantees, but are up to the discretion of the disgruntled Store Manager--Costco--a grey market watch. The most dishonest(stealing the most, internal theft) is usually the Manager; followed by employees. It's a little know secret in Retail Security. The question is why are their employees, and customers stealing so much?
mariuolo 13y ago
I'd be ashamed of being you.

86 points by gscott 13y ago

So apparently people believe when you lie to them if you sound convincing. Frankly I feel I should be disgusted by this kind of behavior, but I am just numb. That numbness makes me sad, where did my innocence go?

r00fus 13y ago
Simply human nature. Cultural programming has de-attuned you to this fact because we make laws and social custom that mostly keep these things in check (well, except for those 1% folk). I'm not surprised, I'm glad I live in a society where it's so uncommon to be scammed that it disgusts you so.

addedlovely 13y ago

This is so so sad. I value truth over money.

tehwebguy 13y ago

I was waiting for a slightly more meaningful enlightening or moral awakening at the end of this article, maybe some kind of realization that the world isn't full of "good people" and "bad people" but that everyone is capable of basic crimes against one another like stealing stuff.

nutball 13y ago

Yeah, get it! Shoplifting is also worthy challenge, though, that I feel the author underrates. Scams and shoplifting are two ways toward the same goal: exiting the store with goods without paying for them or getting caught. Sticking stuff in your pants or purse is a pretty simple move, sure, but it has its subtleties. And plus there's a bunch of complexities to worry about like security tags, snitching customers, loyal employees, security guards, loss prevention officers, and cameras.

jaekwon 13y ago
I'd made a faraday cage with tin foil in my backpack to thwart the tag alarm system, and tested it out on a large retail electronics store. So yeah, maybe it doesn't require the social skills needed for the author's cons, but it did require technical skills. That said, that was a long time ago when I was a troubled kid. Now I'm a voluntaryist, and I see that stealing doesn't fit with my set of values. Perhaps I picked up some valuable lessons while experimenting with anti-values. As for the author, it seems that he never really grew out of it. It's clear that he derives pleasure from cleverly conning people. It's a shame, because that mental energy could be used for good instead of what amounts to scummy behavior. There is so much more pie to be had when you can bake it yourself, rather than having to con it from others.

davidw 13y ago

Trust is hugely important in society. If you have to stop and verify every single thing, it's hugely expensive, which tends to make everyone worse off. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(social_sciences)#Economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(social_sciences)#Economi...

comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
Yup. Our choices have consequences, and he put a lot of effort into making the world a crappier place so he could have a bit more stuff, most of which he probably did not actually need. But the author did even realize half of it. A cashier demoted here or docked pay there is only the tip of the iceberg. The bigger cost is how every manager of every corporate store he scammed was put under pressure to look at all employees as insects, for fear that a few bad apples were running a side business doing favors for friends.
mtrimpe 13y ago
I once heard that described as "Trust is a common good," which really rang true to me. I'd go as far as to say that the first world's biggest asset is the collective trust it has accrued over the centuries.
- javert 13y ago
  This is a bad way to look at it, because you're saying, inmplicitly, either sacrifice for the "common good" and be good, or help yourself and be evil. The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest. So there is an argument to be made for behaving honestly that relies on self-interest instead of calling for self-sacrifice. That is a much more appealing argument, and one I can actually buy into.
  - thecage411 13y ago
    "The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest." Do you have any proof this is true? I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example. Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the premise?

bryan_rasmussen 13y ago

You know anyone could shoot a man in Reno just to watch them die but it takes a real super genius like me to talk at them until they just commit suicide.

how2return 13y ago

I've done this several times while being completely honest about what I'm doing... returning gifts without a gift receipt probably from a different store. Step 1) Find two employees who are polar personalities. Step 2) Attempt to return the item while being completely honest about what you're doing. (books/software/clothes/whatever) Step 3) Get denied. Step 4) Try again with the second employee and mention how the first employee didn't let you.

colinbartlett 13y ago
I don't understand. So the second employee magically helps you because the first wouldn't? To make him jealous or something? What's the con here?
- gnaritas 13y ago
  The enemy of my enemy; people will do things they shouldn't just because they don't like the other person.

austenallred 13y ago

I had a really hard time reading this, mostly because it's difficult for me to separate out in my mind when arbitrage becomes theft. For example, in my teens I found a hack in the eBay search algorithm. The algorithm was very simple; it simply scanned the titles. So if I input '32GB Apple iPod Black' it would return everything with those keywords. If, however, I typed in 'iPod' it would return millions of results and be unusable. Not everybody realized this, however, so there were plenty of items just titled "iPod." I ended up generating a 2-page long search that stared with iPod and negated all non-relevant terms (i.e. 'ipod -headphones -case -protector -battery' etc.). After entering in that term I would be given a page of everything only titled 'iPod,' and could pick them up for $50-100 and flip them the next day for $250-300. That was a good living for a 15-year-old kid. When my mom began to probe after seeing iPods arriving at the house day after day, she started to question me, and we had a long philosophical discussion about whether or not what I was doing was "right." It was legal, of course, but was it right? - this was the much more important question in the eyes of my mom. She felt it was unethical and not providing value - I disagreed, and she allowed me to continue and not go against my conscience. After a few interesting twists and turns the eBay hack turned into a multi-million dollar, off-eBay Broadway ticket brokerage firm. (We scalped broadway tickets at scale.) I provided no real value other than buying tickets at face value a long time in advance, and marking the prices up 3-4x last minute. I justified it by saying wall-street traders don't provide much value either. I let people wait to buy tickets, and let Capitalism decide who would get the tickets instead of who got word of the shows first or who cared the most. I appeased my conscience by convincing myself that I took the risk away from the venues, who could have waited and charged more, and profited thereby, but either didn't know it or were bound into agreements with artists/shows/etc. I still don't know how truthful that was, but eventually I left to try and start something that will actually benefit people, not just redistribute things and make money. I wonder now if I was on a slippery slope and got off at just the right moment. I've seen a lot of my ticket broker/scalper friends end up trying to swindle casinos, get caught up in credit card fraud, etc; it becomes easy to feel smarter-than-thou when you're making bunches of money off of others' perceived negligence. But at the same time I'm not the kind of successful where I can look back and say, "I was dumb and broke the rules and made some mistakes, but look, I made it now!" It's tempting to slip back into a world where you're not benefiting anybody and profiting thereby. So in that sense it's hard to separate my motives then from that of the author. Making money while helping people is really, really, really hard. The moral of the story: It's difficult for me, at times, to discern when a "cool hack" becomes "criminal theft."

JPKab 13y ago

I find the fact that the mother who owned the thrift store would just hand donations that were "designer" to her kid immoral enough. When I donate to a thrift shop, I'm doing so knowing that I'll help people be employed there, and also help out folks who need clothes for a decent price. People who do this stuff always try to rationalize it, but at the end of the day they are stealing from all of us by passing the costs of their behavior onto us through higher prices.

ImprovedSilence 13y ago
>> and also help out folks who need clothes for a decent price. In your mind, does that mean it's immoral for someone well off to shop at a thrift store?
driverdan 13y ago
A consignment shop is not a thrift store.

javert 13y ago

Someone who is truly self-interested will strive to live in harmony with reality and with other people, instead of trying to constantly deceive and manipulate. They will focus on producing real value they can trade, instead of the less efficient strategy of stealing from others. In other words, do you think the author was happy? I don't. Religion and altruism teach that your self-interest (at least in this world) is in opposition to morality. You can either help yourself, OR be good, but not both. The truth is that they are the same thing and you can do both.

pasquinelli 13y ago
"Someone who is truly self-interested will strive to live in harmony with reality and with other people, instead of trying to constantly deceive and manipulate." why? "They will focus on producing real value they can trade, instead of the less efficient strategy of stealing from others." less efficient in what way? "In other words, do you think the author was happy? I don't." i do. well, actually i really don't know, but nothing in the text really made me think he wasn't. "The truth is that they are the same thing and you can do both." i'll be sure to keep that in mind. it sounds so convenient.

philthesong 13y ago

This is more like being cheap

arjie 13y ago

It's funny, but this (seemingly blind) trust is why I like shopping in the Western world. As someone who never abuses it, it makes my life a lot easier. By contrast, in India everyone's tried every variant of this scam. The net result? Shopkeepers don't accept returns and buying things is a combative experience. I guess what I'm trying to say is "This is why we can't have nice things".

bruceb 13y ago
So true. Not even western world, the US. In my travels I have never found a place that is as open and easy to return stuff as America. Even the same company has different return policies depending on the country. H&M has 30 day return for cash with tag & receipt. H&M Brussels will not give your money back, only credit. It might even be only 14 days their I forget. We pay less of a risk premium in the US. Some of these scams will drive that up.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  We pay less of a risk premium in the US. Some of these scams will drive that up. Yup. Thanks to the scammers, even REI has limited their return policy: http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021116265_reireturnsxml.html http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021116265_r...
  - f7t7ft7 13y ago
    Except that REI isn't going from a normal return policy to a draconian return policy. It's going from the most unbelievably lenient and forgiving policy to something that's still far more lenient and forgiving than anyone else offers. I don't think it's quite a fair comparison.

gtz58 13y ago

The justification people have for their actions is interesting. The mother thought she was "outfoxing" the rich, the writer gave himself rules to follow. I can feel a little empathy for being vulnerable to tricking yourself like this.

suprgeek 13y ago

There seems to be a suspiciously large dose of "How smart I was to exploit the trusting nature of people" even if he makes it clear that what he was doing was illegal. If I had to guess, the moral compass is not truly reset - I see a future ether as a CEO or a Wall Street Hedge fund trader for this person.

sfx 13y ago

I once switched my laptop hard drive with a portable one bought at the store, by removing the portable's case and swapping that drive with my laptop's. I then had the new 500gb one in my laptop and an old 120gb in a new portable housing case. I joked to my friend who was with me that I could just return the now 120gb drive back to the store no questions asked. He told me I was an idiot if I didn't; he didn't think of it as stealing as I did. Unfortunately I don't think that mindset is uncommon with our society. What's worse is being moral can be seen as weak and stupid by those who don't see the long term benefits of having a moral population. (Probably aided by the con man often glorified as extremely clever and smart in media, when often he's just taking advantage of people's good will e.g. Catch Me If You Can, Matchstick Men, maybe 21 and Oceans 11. But people love someone smarter than everyone else so they want to emulate that) On the bright side most of the brighter people I know have good ethics.

jezebel6 13y ago

I hope he gets caught one day and has to spend a couple weeks in jail. Grifting scumbag.

callmeed 13y ago

While it's easy to get shocked at some of the author's behavior, I personally don't think it's out of the ordinary. People lie to save money or avoid blame. Examples: - I have a friend who works at an LA Wal-Mart doing returns. You'd be blown away at the things people will bring back. My favorite is a raw turkey post-Christmas that someone didn't cook all the way. - People lie to tech support all the time. "Oh I don't know what happened. I never logged in yesterday!" ... actually, the log file says you did. - My sister-in-law works at a bank. The stories people will tell to fight overdraft fees are hilarious.

driverdan 13y ago

Pulling a con is very similar to being a hacker (the good or bad kind, your choice). You find weaknesses in a system and exploit them. Finding and exploiting them becomes a rush and pulling the con off can be just as rewarding as the financial gains (or more so). Creating a persona and successfully acting it out becomes almost an addiction. Back when I was into fraud I was always looking for loopholes and weaknesses. Most of them I didn't exploit because the risk / reward ratio wasn't good enough. But there were still plenty of "good" ones. Store doesn't check serial numbers on returns? Buy a new item and return a broken one in its place. Store lets you do self-checkout on high ticket items? Use stolen credit cards cloned onto gift cards. Mail drop photocopies your ID? Make a fake ID with matching foreground and background contrast so the B&W copy looks black. Get online access to someone's bank or credit card with no additional info? Change the mailing address and request a new card (and PIN).

yetanotherphd 13y ago

The perverse ethics of the author were apparent from the start "[I operated in a time] before you had to show ID, sign a slip of paper and answer a battery of questions from the always skeptical supervisor." The offended tone of the author is hardly appropriate given that this batter of questions was designed precisely to prevent scammers like the author, and indeed made necessary by people like him. Anyway, theft is theft whether it's against a large corporation or an individual. I can understand that people don't feel sympathetic towards large corporations since they never seem to be criminally liable when they break the law. However the answer is surely to enforce the law equally no matter who the criminal or victim is?

cftm 13y ago

The entire tone of the article is rather off-putting. Through portions of the article there tended to be this sense of having pulled one over on corporate America, when that is hardly reality. One data point: Nordstroms. They will take everything in returns. For them, customer lifetime value add of a hassle free customer experience outweighs edge cases like the author who take advantage of the system. I'm sure there were many instances of the author taking advantage of the bureaucracy of large corporations, but that's no particular feat of genius- that's a byproduct of bureaucratic systems. A writer whose name currently escapes me said something to the effect of, "Love your stories, but never believe them".

marincounty 13y ago

I noticed a few years ago how much information, and questions companies wanted for returns. Well--now I only buy exactly what I need. It's just not worth the agrivation. In all honestly, I don't like shopping anymore. I'm tired of being photographed when I walk in a store. I'm tired of receipts that disappear if you put them in your pocket.(thermal paper--and yes, I think they know the receipts will disappear, and the customer will forget all their transactions are on a database). I'm tired of lifetime guarantees, but are up to the discretion of the disgruntled Store Manager--Costco--a grey market watch. The most dishonest(stealing the most, internal theft) is usually the Manager; followed by employees. It's a little know secret in Retail Security. The question is why are their employees, and customers stealing so much?

mariuolo 13y ago

I'd be ashamed of being you.