Rip-off

Rip-off by Fay Faron is a crime-writer’s reference on con artists and the cons they run, from street-level shell games to high-stakes real-estate swindles, profiling the swindlers, their schemes, and their victims. Written by a professional private investigator, it gives mystery, thriller, and crime writers real grounding in the world of fraud and confidence games, a rich and underused vein of criminal material. Reviewed as the specialized craft tool it is, it does a focused, interesting job, with the usual caveat about its age.

The lens, as with these references, is craft: the value is accurate detail for writing believable cons and con artists, and this review treats it as that tool, focused on what it gives a storyteller.

The anatomy of the con

The value is a detailed, real-world anatomy of the confidence game across its whole range. The small street hustles. The elaborate long cons. The property and investment swindles. And the psychology that makes them work. Faron profiles the con artists, the mechanics of the schemes, and the victims, showing how cons are run and why people fall for them.

For a writer this is fertile material. A well-rendered con is among the most satisfying things in crime fiction, a puzzle of deception and misdirection. Understanding how real cons operate lets a writer build a swindle that’s both believable and clever instead of a vague hand-wave.

Watch: Rip Off and Scams a Court TV special starring Fay Faron, aka Rat Dog Dick, The Rat Dog Dick Detective Agency

The psychology of the mark

The most useful dimension for a writer may be the psychology, because a con is a story the swindler tells the victim, and the victim’s willingness to believe it is the heart of the crime. Faron’s attention to why victims fall for cons, the greed, trust, hope, and self-deception the con artist exploits, gives a writer insight into both sides of the dynamic: a con artist who understands human nature, and a victim whose downfall feels psychologically true instead of stupid.

That understanding lets a writer create cons that work on the reader too, and victims who are sympathetic instead of merely foolish, and that makes a fictional swindle land.

What are the weaknesses of Rip-off?

The standard limitations apply. The book dates from 1998, and while the timeless psychology of the con, greed, trust, deception, is unchanging, the specific schemes have evolved enormously, especially with the internet: today’s cons run heavily through email, online fraud, identity theft, and digital schemes that the book predates, so a writer setting a contemporary con must update the methods even as the underlying psychology holds. As with all such references, it’s grounding for fiction, not a how-to, and its value is in believable storytelling.

It’s also a narrow specialist reference, useful to the crime writer and dated in its schemes like its shelfmates.

Is Rip-off worth reading?

It’s an interesting and useful crime-writer’s reference on con artists and confidence games, valuable for its real-investigator anatomy of how cons work and, above all, for the psychology of why victims fall for them, fertile material for the deception-driven crime story. It loses ground for its 1998 vintage, which dates the specific schemes significantly in an era of internet fraud, though the underlying psychology endures.

Treat it as authoritative on the human dynamics of the con and a dated starting point on the specific scams, useful to the crime writer and best updated for any modern setting. A capable, unusually engaging niche tool.

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