Magic Balls

There is no such thing as magic, and if something sounds to good to be true it probably is. Strangely enough this blog entry is in a way connected to the previous one because it is about scams.

A few days ago a Swedish newspaper (In Swedish) mentioned a test of environmental safe ways to wash your clothes made by a Norwegian consumer rights organization. Among the tested products was a “magic ball” that contained some ceramic beads that was claimed to have some remarkable properties.

In the test the magic ball had no effect above washing the clothes in plain water. A similar product had been sold in a chain of stores in Sweden (Design torget) and the newspaper contacted that chain to get a comment. The product had sold very well and they had no complaints, they had actually sold out; but now they were not going to take in any more until they had them tested by an independent third party.

I saw the product in the stores before they were sold out and reading the description on the back about how it was supposed to work it was obvious that it did not. At least if it was working it was not working in the way that was described.

If you sell something to people that does not work that is to scam them, isn’t it?

I assume that the stores are not as cynical that they are selling something that they know does not work. And I am sure that people are not as stupid that they buy things that they know does not work. The problem is that people do not always know enough to understand what works and what does not.

So whos responsibility is it to make sure that people are not scammed? Is it a matter of caveat emptor so that if you buy something that does not work it is your own fault? Or is it the person that sells a product that is responsible to make sure that it works? Could it be the manufacturer that should know their products enough to be sure it works?

There is no easy answer because even if it is not legally the buyer’s responsibility there will always be con men out there and people selling dreams so it is necessary to be aware.

And if you sell something that does not work but is not aware of the fact are you when perpetrating a scam? I guess that depend on if you were supposed to understand that it did not work.

Everyday we accept a lot of information uncritically. And if what we hear does not go against anything we know even if it is just because we do not understand it, we do not react. It is possible to sell a non-working product without consciously trying to scam your customers. Of course if you make a lot of money from selling something you may choose to disregard your doubt in a product and just not put in the effort to find out if it works or not.

If buyers and sellers had excuses surely the manufacturers cannot get off as easily. If some one is to know if a product works or not it must be the people that invented it and makes it. And yes, they should know. There are those that perpetrate scams creating products that they know does not work, you can make a lot of money with cheap labour, good public relations, and without scientific testing. But that is true even if you do not want to scam people and really believe in your idea. The problem is of course that being convinced that your product works is no guarantee and no substitute to scientific testing.

I do not know the makers of the magic ball, it might be that they are good willing and simply does not know how to test their product or they can be not so good willing scammers. None the less even the manufacturer may not be guilty of purposefully committing a fraud when a non-working product is sold.

The last blog entry was about how people are scammed, this one was about how people may lose money on products without anyone trying to scam anyone. Knowledge is the way to avoid both.

The Real Hustle

This is not news for people in the UK. Objective productions, the company that has produced Derren Brown’s TV shows and TV specials, have a wonderful series about how to con people. Although I should perhaps say that it is about how to avoid being conned but knowledge is a double edged sword. Dishonest people watch TV as everyone else so it is not impossible that some of them learn some new tricks.

One of the differences between a magician and a cheat is the same as the difference between an educated person and an expert. The magician knows many more moves than the cheat but the cheat has perfected his. The audience tend to be less forgiving to a mediocre cheat than to a mediocre magician.

But even if some scoundrels learn a few more tricks I think the overall effect of the series is positive. First, con artist are specialized so they will only try a few if any of the scams. Second, to do a scam requires effort and practice; to see through the same scam and avoid being fooled you only need knowledge. So I see no reason why they could not show The Real Hustle in Sweden, though I hope they show the original British version.

The series is on its sixth season in Britain and the British version is the better one in my opinion. I do not understand why Americans always need their own version; proper English isn’t that hard to understand.

The three people staring in the show are Alex Conran, Jessica-Jane Clement, and Paul Wilson an excellent magician who's lecture I attended at the world championship of magic in Stockholm 2006.

They are really good at explaining how the different scams work because there are a lot of different layers in working a con. There are the practical details of the scam and the psychology that draws the victim into the fantasy world. Appealing to emotions work quite well, especially greed. It is also great fun to watch the show and the reaction of the people that are conned.

Anyone with an interest in how con artists operate can search youtube for some practical psychology at work (and some physics as well). Unfortunately the very best youtube channel was shut down, I guess that someone did not want these shows available for free. But some places to start looking are here, though they might be shut down soon so hurry:

ScamOnTv
Realhustledotcom
Scamplot’s

I think it is possible to learn a lot more from the series than only the mechanics of the plots and the specific psychological hooks that are used. In essence a good con artist let the mark fool himself. To avoid fooling oneself is perhaps something of the most difficult there is, it requires knowledge about the world and how we think and to apply it to oneself.

I guess that when a show is written (by Paul Wilson and Alex Conran incidentally) this is not what they think about; there is a clear educational angle to the series but focused more on consumer awareness than science and philosophy.

I should say something about the American version as well but I let someone else do it.

Objective Productions/Crook Productions’ new show, The Real Hustle, features a pickpocket/security consultant, a magician, and an actress hustling innocent passersby on television. Apollo Robbins, who made national news when he picked the pockets of Secret Service agents while performing for former president Jimmy Carter, heads up the team. New York City magician Ryan Oakes supplies the sleight-of-hand expertise, while Dani Marco is the actress onboard. Her credits include Law&Order The Sopranos, and most recently the Chris Rock movie, I Think I Love my Wife.

Magic Magazine, No 5, vol 17, January 2008, p.27