How I became a con artist (2010)

Dude. You know I love you right? Like... this to me is the epitome of the startup culture issues I think we face in Utah.

MLMs add little value most of the time. I feel like they're more con than anything.

I'm glad you're questioning the natural arbitrage opportunity. It's something I hadn't been able to put into words, but I think you've done a good job articulating it.

"Are you creating more value than you capture?" That's the real question, right?

Assuming that scalping is legal, and doesn't break some contractual agreement with the ticket seller, it is not "hurtful".

What is best for society is not to give things to those who want/need them most, but to people who are willing to pay the most for them.

This is the first welfare theorem. The "suits" earned their money, and what is the point of earning money if you can only use it to buy things other people don't want? If you want to do redistribution, then it should be done fairly, through taxation, but after the redistribtution is done, there is no better way to distribute resources than on a willingness-to-pay basis

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.

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?

>"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."

Interesting, This is a trait that I often find myself admiring about the societies in the west (ie) the Trust that the System has in its people that they wouldn't cheat or exploit. I sometimes thought the System didn't 'go after' the people who exploit it, since it simply wasn't worth the Return on Investments to put checks in place to catch them. I recently traveled to Los Angeles and took the LAX Fly Away (a paid shuttle service) to get to union station. Passengers paid for the ticket at the destination in booth located ~100 meters away & and claimed the baggage using the receipt. But if you did not have any luggage or had only a backpack -- you could simply walk away without paying nothing. There are multiple exits at the food court in my workplace,and you could simply walk away without paying at the counter. Systems like these shocked me initially , it seemed like a glaring loophole but I quickly understood the priciple behind it - "the collective trust the society has accrued over the centuries."

The more I saw these, the principle grew on me. I became less skeptical about the intentions of people and automatically started giving "goodness" points ..even to random people. Prior to seeing this system , I would generally employ far more scrutiny about people and assume they had evil intentions by default ( this is sometimes subjective).

But I did find myself on the receiving end once: I was trying to buy tickets for a Bon Jovi concert a few months ago that was supposed to be held at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. Since the show was sold out, I was looking for deals on CraigsList.I m not a die-hard fan of Bon Jovi and wasn't desperate for the tickets. I called a few people , a lot of them were selling tickets at the face value - I kept eliminating sellers since they were far , or didn't have the number of tickets I wanted or .. were selling 'crappy seats -20$ tickets'. I finally ran into a Lady who was selling four tickets & quoted 240$ for all of them. I asked for the seat number and I couldn't make much from the seating chart. I thought it might be a overhanging balcony or something. I blindly requested if she could drop the prices, and she offered those tickets for 200$ after quickly consulting with her husband. She kept telling thats what they paid , had receipts.. etc.,etc.,

Since these were hard tickets I had to meet them in person to collect the tickets. I said I lived in Palo Alto and.. after a quick consultation with her husband again, she mentioned I could meet her husband at Starbucks in Palo Alto the next morning. Turns out he works for facebook and it wasn't a detour for him. She handed over the phone to him , we exchanged numbers and he asked about where I worked in Palo Alto. I mention the name of my company .. a virtualization giant with 10K+ employees HQed in Palo Alto. He throws a a few names, and ..bang ..starts mentioning the name of my Manager, My director and others . He said he worked with them a few years ago , and I was convinced I was dealing with someone nice. I quickly obliged to the timing he mentioned and closed the deal.I was trying to be nice & asked if I needed to transfer money over paypal. He said it was alright. I ran into my boss after this conversation , mentioned this dude's name and he immediately recognized him. My boss has a very_common_first_name@gmail.com , and I always wonder how he got that account . Years ago , My boss had received a beta invite to create a google account from this dude who worked for Google as well. He spoke of him as a smart person , I came back to my desk and googled for him. There were videos of him explaining how "Release Management" worked in "Facebook".. and how he approves/rejects check-ins, looking at the comment traffic on the review request etc., This person was totally legit.

I got up early next day, drove to the Starbucks we had decided to meet at. I noticed this mid/late 30's person with scruffy beard meddling with his phone. I recognized and walked up to him . He looked up .. clasped my hands and gave a tight handshake , quickly took his wallet out. I took the cash out of my pocket as well .. he irreverently threw four tickets on the table. I handed over the money to him ..picked up the tickets & immediately realized those were four 20$ tickets.. which a bunch of other folks were trying to sell me at face value. I didn't protest ..and simply let him walk away in all the glory of having capitalized the situation. This was a man who has been in three Pre-IPO comapanies as a release engineer or manager : my company , google and facebook. All through I kept assuming , I was buying something for a fair price. I "trusted" he was acting with a reasonable frame of mind ; I gave him "goodness" points for he too has a part in the "accrued collective trust".. I didn't even feel bad for paying those extra dollars .. I couldn't wrap my head around why someone with so much credentials would behave this way. After all, there are people who constantly dent this "collective trust".