This is a free excerpt from the book: “Scam Secrets”

An older, nervous, very well-dressed man approaches you on the street in the heart of a downtown area. He asks you to help him with a problem he’s having.

He promises that what he’ll ask you to do is entirely legal and also promises you that there will be a quick several thousand-dollar reward in it for you.

He says that he’s been in the diamond business for many years. He tells you his name, or even gives you a business card which says that he’s a jeweler. He digs in his pocket and comes up with a small blue velvet cloth with a unique gold border. In it are two large diamonds. He tells you that the two jewels are easily worth $50,000 wholesale. 

His partner of many years, the rat, ran off with his wife and all the firm’s money leaving him to face the loss of his license, destruction of his reputation, bankruptcy and a very bleak retirement. All he has left in this world are these two gems which he had squirreled away. He desperately needs to quickly sell them for whatever he can get.

Problem is, he’s so well known in the trade that he can’t dispose of them himself. He needs your help.

And though the diamonds are worth much more, he’ll settle for a lousy $10,000 - such is his desperation. He seems emotionally disturbed and very anxious to get this all over with.

He knows that you are very suspicious at this point. So, here’s the deal: you take the jewels and go to any one of four or five established jewelers who are all within easy walking distance to have them appraised. You choose which jeweler you want to go to.

Or if you like, you can take them to two or even three different jewelers if you’re really suspicious. You look like a nice person so he’ll trust you with his gems. (Though he’ll follow and watch from a distance)

You take them around and each jeweler you go to quickly offers you $70,000 to 95,000 cash on the spot. Each jeweler seems very interested in the stones. These are obviously very valuable diamonds.

You return to him with your greed juices in full flow. You stand to make $40,000 or more on the deal in just a few minutes. You continue to hold the blue bag while the two of you go to your bank where you come up with the $10,000 in cash. He waits outside while you go in.

But when you return with the money, you find the seller in an extremely distressed state of mind. He’s groaning out loud in agony. He’s pacing around in a panic. You offer him the money but he refuses. He momentarily grabs the jewel bag from your hands, but only for a brief moment.

He says the deal is off and quickly stuffs the bag into his coat pocket but just as quickly pulls it out again and says that since you have been so patient and understanding, he’ll take your cash.

He takes you money, hands you the bag and vanishes into the mist. Your mind swooning with your sudden good fortune, you head off to the jeweler who offered you the highest price for the gems.

When you arrive, the jeweler is smiling and very glad to see you and your little blue bag again. He happily opens the cloth and announces “Hey, these aren’t the diamonds you brought in here before, these are cut glass fakes - what are you trying to pull!” and promptly kicks you out of his store.  

But where did you go wrong? You were watching this guy very carefully all along. You’ve been had but you don’t know how!

You think you held the bag with the genuine gems all along. But you forgot one extremely brief moment. In front of the bank when the seller expressed second thoughts about going through with the deal, he ever so quickly snatched the bag out of your hands and shoved it into his pocket.

You pressed him to take your money. He quickly caved in and handed the bag back and took your money.

During those few moments, probably less than three or four seconds the bag was in his pocket - he did the switch, replacing the bag with the real gems with a second bag containing two cut glass stones wrapped in exactly the same unique cloth. Why didn’t you notice it?

Because in all probability your mouth was going a mile a minute and he was making eye contact with you to keep you distracted. He did the switch as quickly as possible, all of which made the switch virtually invisible to you. There’s very little chance you even noticed it at all given the confused emotional state you were in at the time!

Also, the flood of relief you felt when once again you had that nice warm little blue cloth back in your hands, all but wiped out any concern. That gave him plenty of time to flee the scene.

After studying scam-artists for several decades, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that these criminals have a better understanding of the human mind than any psychologist!

First this guy “set the hook” by triggering your greed in a very convincing way. There was no way he could “fix” several different reputable jewelry stores to lie to you about the value of the gems. They would never go along with such a deception. It would damage their most valued asset – their reputation.

The first set of stones were obviously very valuable. Then he diverted your attention momentarily by pretending to have second thoughts which triggered you to focus all of your attention on convincing him to sell you the gems, rather than focus on where those stones were moment by moment.

I’m ashamed to say that I might be taken in by this one, it’s so clever. Greed, when properly triggered is, in reality, a form of temporary insanity.

Next free extract: The Invention Idea Scam!

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