The Paradox of the Scam

I think one thing needs to be discussed here that I rarely see mentioned.

Confidence Men, or con men as they are called now, are only able to perpetrate their cons/scams on the internet largely because of your greed, risk-taking and self-deceptive behavior.

While virtually anyone can fall prey to fraudulent crimes, internet fraud victims are generally greedy, risk-taking, self-deceptive individuals looking to make a quick dollar. They seem to possess a level of greed which exceeds their caution as well as a willingness to believe what they want to believe.

Madoff was caught only because the recession dried up his feeder funds. No one wanted to believe he was a con man even when his deeds were delivered on a silver platter to the FCC more than 5 times over the course of a decade.

When someone like Madoff is finally exposed, people immediately rush to judgment and assume he is the bad guy and the rest are the vitims. The better lesson, however, might be for each so-called victim to look a real long look in the mirror and see if they were complicit.

We have con men amongst us right now salivating because they know some of you will do or become just about anyone to make a quick or easy buck.

In reality, the character of the con man and the con victim can be very similar. So, to condemn them may be to condemn yourselves.