Con Artistry

How to Spot and Deal with a Con Artist to Avoid the Different Types of Scams

Non-Fiction - True Crime
80 Pages
Reviewed on 09/04/2017
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

"Indulge Instant Info."

Information is power, and here at Instafo, our mission is to reach a particular group of individuals who are committed to improving their lives, those who have always craved a platform that focuses on truly improving its community.

What differentiates Instafo, is rather simple: with a wealth of all-encompassing knowledge, Instafo is the go-to instant information media to providing only the most helpful and useful information that matters - to instruct, inform, inspire, and innovate in order to enhance one’s abilities, life quality, and/or happiness.

Elevate your lifestyle. Refine your mentality. Foster your individuality. And exceed even your own expectations through Instafo.

For more information, visit https://instafo.com - and join the community.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Viga Boland for Readers' Favorite

Toward the end of Con Artistry by Edwin Piers, Instafo, the author states: “A con artist is only as great as its victim”. How very true, and one might add that the less informed the victim, the greater the con artist’s chances of success. That’s why, regardless of your status in life, in our rapidly changing worlds, both real and cyber-space, where con artists are finding more and better ways to relieve you of your hard-earned money, homes and valuables, you owe it to yourself and your family to pick up this 80-page book, Con Artistry. It’s super easy to read, uncluttered, written in layman’s language and friendly. Give it an hour of your time and you might save yourself years of suffering.

After presenting some rather fascinating historical con artists, like Viktor Lustig who managed to sell the Eiffel Tower twice and even proposed a “Ten Commandments for Con Men”, Piers tells readers how to recognize con artists. These criminals will play on your intelligence and understanding, cleverly gain your trust and confidence, convince you of their sincerity, require your secrecy and discourage your questions. But it is that last item readers must do most i.e. ask questions! The thing to realize with these con artists is that they are excellent at reading personalities. It takes them little time to determine your weaknesses and greatest fears. Those fears could be based on religion, health, finances or even your reputation. Con artists will nail what concerns you most quickly, then move in for the kill, usually to relieve you of your money.

Think that it’s only via the internet or email that you might get scammed? In Con Artistry, the author will alert you to potential con artists lurking behind online dating sites and your city’s streets, ones you might never connect with being cons. Piers will help you recognize those. Above all, though it’s been said time and again, the adage still applies: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t!” And this quote from author and businessman, Ziad K. Abdelnour, that Edwin Piers shares in Con Artistry is a good one to bear in mind at all times: “Be careful who you trust: the devil was once an angel.”

Erin Kollar

Con Artistry deals with a topic that is important no matter who you are. It is a good book to look at if you're wondering how to spot a con. While the book does talk about cons that you should be aware of, remember that new cons and new variations of cons are popping up all the time. That being said, this book provides enough examples that new cons shouldn't be a problem for you.

One thing mentioned in the book is that people have a tendency to want to please which helps some con artists. Sometimes a need to not admit you've been scammed allows the conartist to not get caught. The book helpfully points out that if you don't report the scammer you will allow them to continue. This means even more people could lose a large amount of money.

I liked reading about past con artists and how their scams worked. Especially how selling the Eiffel Tower could work. Every story ended with them being caught. Each story about a famous con artist is also followed with lessons you can learn from them. Such as Charles Ponzi reminds you to not get greedy and to remain honest. The one person's lesson I got confused about is Frank Abagnale as that seemed to paint the con artist in too good of a light. It's one thing to admire someone but another thing to want to imitate them.

I've used a dating site in the past, a smaller one that doesn't have many commercials on tv, and it's good this book covers cons on that kind of site. Dating websites aren't looked at as they were years ago. Yeah, there was a time when you'd be laughed at for saying you were using a site like e-harmony. So today more people will probably be dating via a dating site.

Something that wasn't brought up in this section is you need to always meet a new person in public. Though that's really more about safety than scams. So I can understand why it was left out, but it still feels odd that it isn't there.

Where I live there is a couple that pretends to be homeless. The wife and husband going to the same place but on different days. I loathe this type of con as it's extremely harmful for those that are actually homeless and in need of help.

All in all this book is a good read to make sure you're aware of cons. Some of these I knew while others I was unsure of how they worked. This is a good starting point as, again, cons evolve to fit the times. This book brings up the fact that it doesn't have enough space to talk about every con. However, it does a great job at preparing you for facing any con and not being fooled. So even if you don't know the exacts of a particular con, you'll stand a good chance at not being fooled by it.

EMH

This is a great book that helps warn many about cons, scheme and fraud. I knew a lot about typical cons before I started reading this book, but I still found myself learning a lot while reading it. It also brought forth stuff that I didn’t really think about, like medical scams and stuff like that.

The online dating scam was one I’ve not really thought about, though it is easily prevalent today. We all know about catfishes and the like, but few of us think that can happen to us; even fewer take the time out to study whether or not a profile is fake. I liked that it gave some ideas on how to tell if a profile is fake, such as the fact that they pointed out they’re an American citizen.

Some people reading the book might think that some of the advice is stuff that they already know, and while it may be, I thought I knew a lot of stuff about con information and yet I still learned quite a bit while reading it.

The book is a nice, quick read that you can easily do in one sitting.