The Art of the Steal

5

[THE ROCK IN THE BOX

AND THE MUSTARD SQUIRTER]

A few years ago, a young man living in New York contacted the local phone company and asked to speak to customer service. When he was connected, he explained to the representative that he gave advice over the telephone on the stock market, and he wanted to start charging for his insight.

“Oh, so you need something like a 900 number,” the representative said.

“Yes, exactly,” the man said. “What I want to do is charge thirty-five dollars for the first minute, and then a dollar a minute after that.”

The customer service representative told the man that they had a number of area codes that could be set up to do exactly that: 900, 847, and a few others. “Give me an 847,” he said. He chose that code deliberately. Many people, from calling astrology or other self-help numbers, know that you have to pay when you call a 900 number. But, with the flurry of new local area codes that have been introduced in and around New York, not many people know about 847 and some of the other codes.

In short order, the man was all set. And not to give any kind of stock advice. He sat down at the phone with the Yellow Pages. He began at the front of the directory and moved alphabetically through it. He’d pick a category: air conditioners. He’d phone a supplier and be routed to sales. Often enough, he’d get someone’s voice mail. He’d leave a message to the effect of: “I’m from Aurola Sales. I need about ten pretty good-sized cooling units, as soon as possible.” He left his new 847 number.

A salesman would hear the message and get right on the phone. The guy would pick up, “Sorry, you have the wrong number.” Bam. He just made $35. The salesman would figure he misdialed. He’d call right back. “Sorry, wrong number.” There was another $35.

The man would do this day after day. He’d mark his page in the Yellow Pages at night and in the morning would resume from where he had left off. Sometimes, he was given pager numbers, and he’d go ahead and page people to call him at his 847 number. Because these were businesses he was calling, they all incurred large enough phone bills that they would never detect an extra $35 or $70. For the young man, it added up quite nicely. It wasn’t long before he had cleared more than $1 million. And he was never caught.

LOW RENT DOESN’T MEAN LOW RETURN

It’s a deceptive world out there today, and I have to give criminals credit. They’re clever. On top of hot checks, counterfeit documents, and embezzlement at the office, there’s a whole patchwork of little scams that prolific con artists play on a gullible public, some of them puckishly insidious. Many of them have a shape so surprising that their place in the annals of con artists is insured. They involve irresistible forces that entice even highly intelligent and wary consumers. The artful confidence man can extract money from just about anyone, because he’s an astute student of human nature and knows the power of deception.