Con artists segments

[Telomerase]

What is your favorate con artist segment? Specifically the ones where lonely women are the victims. I love these segments and even kind of admire some of these guys. Does that make me a bad person?

[Awsi Dooger]

I have a fascination with con men also. For some reason segments like that, and also the thefts like bank robbery, don't bother me too much as long as no violence was used and no one pulled a weapon or made threats. I often found myself rooting for the person to get away.

I guess my favorite was the segment with the cheap coins in New York, convincing the person to pay the bum a relatively low amount for them. It had greed and deception on both ends, since the only reason the guy is doing it is to make a big score on his own behalf. I loved it when such simple things tripped them up, like wondering how coins with such low face value could be worth so much, and being sent to the same hotel time after time and no one there by that name. No doubt many more people fell for that scam than ever came forward to admit it.

This town is king of the hustle. I've seen plenty of them. I've had guys try to sell me worthless sports tickets. "Hey, could you give me $80 for this? It's worth $105 but I need the money now and I don't have time to go downtown." Then I'll look at it and it will be a ticket from the previous game, one the team didn't cover the spread. The spread will be the same, or virtually the same, from the successful performance in today's game, and the guy is trying to slip it past a sucker. I'll pat them on the head and say nice try. Then I'll go to the sportsbook manager and point them out. Stuff like that has happened many times. It's not as easy to dismiss it and root for the guy when he's trying to con you.

Here are some other ones:

* Guys in this town love to pass worthless casino chips to prostitutes, pretending they are big money denominations

* "Hey, could you give me a few bucks for gas? My car broke down and I've been walking trying to find someone to help me out." Meanwhile, there's no sight of a car because a car doesn't exist. Sometimes the guy will be carrying a gas can as a prop.

* One black woman runs a scam all over town, claiming she just lost her purse and wallet which contained a bus ticket to go see her ailing son. She's frantic and hoping someone can help her. She does this outside of major casinos, in spots where people walk back to their cars. She tried it on me so many times, or I saw her do it to others. I finally would wave her off beforehand and say, "Don't tell me about a wallet." The last time she said, "Okay, you know my game. So what?" Not much later I saw her pull it outside Caesar's Palace on the Strip and I ran across the street to O'Sheas to call police and turn her in.

* Desperate guys use the bonus machines to scam tourists here. They call it creating. They put a woman on a bonus machine and lie about the playing characteristics of the machine. They have her play it to a certain level, at the brink of the bonus, then tell them the machine is no good and recommend a machine elsewhere. Then their cohort, who is sitting at a nearby machine, swoops in and finishes off the bonus. I've called that in at one casino after another when I've seen it. The guys who do it have threatened me so I do it from a distance, going to a security phone and describing the situation and location. It hurts me because the casinos take those machines out because of the lowlife creators. Luckily the security and gaming commission is becoming increasingly aware of it and doing stings, with some of the guys going to jail.

[justins5256]

Originally Posted by Telomerase

What is your favorate con artist segment? Specifically the ones where lonely women are the victims. I love these segments and even kind of admire some of these guys. Does that make me a bad person?

I don't think that makes you a bad person. On the upside, the guys you are referring to were probably likable and definitely had skills with the ladies (always a cool quality to have). My favorite "con" would have to be Jack Lutter - the airline pilot who who had numerous wives and girlfriends all over the country. He maintained this "lifestyle" for almost ten years until the airline changed his route and his world and existence literally came crashing down. A movie was made about his life a few years later, and to the best of my knowledge, he was never apprehended, so he never had to answer to or be held accountable for anything.

[AVERMAN]

Originally Posted by Telomerase

What is your favorate con artist segment? Specifically the ones where lonely women are the victims. I love these segments and even kind of admire some of these guys. Does that make me a bad person?

I think it makes you a terrible person and a menace to society Nah, your all right.

I like the one where the "mother and daughter" move in with that Korean lady, convince her to take a holiday, then bugger off with her jewellry and used her house for satanic rituals.

I also find interesting that lonely girl that was duped by a female fortune teller. It's the one where the guy dressed up as the chick and tried to book a holiday to London or somewhere. They found the lonely chicks body near a river.

Moral to the story? Never trust something that bleeds for a week every month, and doesn't die.

[greatgarrett2]

Originally Posted by Awsi Dooger

I have a fascination with con men also. For some reason segments like that, and also the thefts like bank robbery, don't bother me too much as long as no violence was used and no one pulled a weapon or made threats. I often found myself rooting for the person to get away.

lol...a little off topic, but I used to watch the Care Bears and root for Beastly.......

As for con segments........the one I remember is Carlos Garcia, he was charming one lady while he bilked people out of money by posing to do their investments/taxes and stealing their identities......

[Awsi Dooger]

Originally Posted by greatgarrett2

lol...a little off topic, but I used to watch the Care Bears and root for Beastly.......

Hey, I don't even know who Beastly is but that sounds like great handicapping!

Reminds me of Mr. Drysdale on the Beverly Hillbillies, appropriately rooting for the Boston Strong Girl to trample pathetic Rebecca of Donnybrook Farm.

It's just like all the tourists in town for the NCAA basketball tournament. I get sick of these saps rooting for the underdog. Screw that. They're underdogs for a reason. Kick 'em when they're down.

[James T]

It is annoying when the people taken for a ride are people who can not afford to lose money but when it is people who think nothing of giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to people they barely know just because they are greedy then it is hard to have too much sympathy

[Awsi Dooger]

I don't know what that meant but it gives me an excuse to use that great smilie again.

Actually I did root for one underdog today, USC ousting Texas as partial payback for that Rose Bowl nonsense.

And these are reserved for all the commentators who say Southern Cal instead of USC. Specifically Digger Phelps who botches it every time.

[SP4CE INV4DERZ]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

I take it you haven't seen the Karate Kid.

To summarize the 2 hour long movie in one paragraph, life is going great for 17 year old Daniel Larusso until his mother has to take a higher paying job in L.A. to make ends meet. So he is forced to leave his comfortable surroundings in Jersey and he and mom make the trek to L.A. Initially things go well for him there as well, but he quickly runs afoul of some toughs known as the Cobra Kai, particluarly a group of 5, who take every opportunity to beat the tar out of him. He encounters the help of a wise janitor (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita, in an award nominated performance.), who teaches him not only karate, but about life. Daniel (who is not quite as big as his opponents) enters a karate tournament and manages to win the thing, beating two time champ Johnny Lawrence (played by the typecast-as-bully William Zabka.) in the finals. He wins the respect of Johnny Lawrence (who, with the rest of the Cobra Kai, turn on their hateful sensai at the beginning of the first sequel). A nice tale about an underdog winning it all through perseverance, and learning alot in the process.

so stop knocking underdogs.

Have you seen The Karate Kid lately....it's shocking!!
I used to think No Retreat No Surrender was good... OMG!!! One cameraman the entire movie

[wiseguy182]

Originally Posted by Space Invaderz

Have you seen The Karate Kid lately....it's shocking!!
I used to think No Retreat No Surrender was good... OMG!!! One cameraman the entire movie

Actually, I was a tad surprised. The smarter move IMO would have been to have Daniel do well in the tournament, maybe quarterfinals or seminfinals, but not win it. This way, he does well enough so that his confidence is boosted, but the Cobra Kai can still pester him. Everyone keeps their heat that way. They would book pro wrestling matches in a similar way, book a disqulification or count out loss to keep the heat on everyone. Then in the sequel, they could have put Daniel over and just have him winning the whole thing. But they put all the best stuff in the first one, so the subsequent ones lacked a bit. The second one was ok, but the third and fourth were so pedestrian they could have walked out into the middle of the street and cars would have stopped for them.

[greatgarrett2]

Originally Posted by Awsi Dooger

Hey, I don't even know who Beastly is but that sounds like great handicapping!

Actually, Beastly worked for No-heart. Beastly and No-heart were the Care Bears opponents in the show and the Care Bares would always win(of course).......then, Beastly had a cousin 'Shreeky' who sometimes worked with Beastly as the villan and 'Shreeky' was always belittling Beastly.

I wanted to see Beastly win just once even.......but it didn't happen!

[Awsi Dooger]

Nope, haven't seen Karate Kid, whatever that is.

Not interested in underdogs, late bloomers or overachievers. Most boring tales of all time. The story never changes. A team full of those types will always flop since they are natural regulators.

[greatgarrett2]

I've heard of Karate Kid and their sequals, but never seen them.........might pick them up, someday.......

As for other con segments, Pidgeon Drops 1 and 2 were intriguing. Sad for the elderly victims, of course. Someday the con they did will come back to haunt those people who did it.......

[wiseguy182]

Originally Posted by Awsi Dooger

Nope, haven't seen Karate Kid, whatever that is.

Not interested in underdogs, late bloomers or overachievers. Most boring tales of all time. The story never changes. A team full of those types will always flop since they are natural regulators.

Whoa, where were you in the 80's friend? That was one of the classic movies of that decade.

Yes as I admitted, the sequels to the Karate Kid were pretty formulaic, but the original is a favorite among sports movie fans. To say "always" is not a good idea, since upsets do happen.

if you're going to keep bashing me, you're going to get it back in spades.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

WOW. I can't believe I've been overlooking SUCH a cool thread. How can you not know the Karate Kid?!?! I played a fun drinking game to that movie the other night... anytime you saw feathered hair or heard a cheesy line, you took a drink. We were drinking ALL. NIGHT. LONG.

The Karate Kid is one of those movies that, in my opinion, defined the 80's in the way that another movie was said to do in the late 1970's.... :starwars:


But, since we're bashing here... did anyone see the bashing that Robot Chicken did on the Karate Kid? Flash to a scene of an animated Daniel LaRusso, standing in the infamous crane position on a stump on the beach. The 80's power ballad is playing in the background. A passerby happens along this scene, stops and observes Daniel LaRusso, and in one quick movement, and kicks Daniel's leg out from under him. AWESOME.