[quote=no_such_reality]I’ve met people like that guy too. I don’t find them particularly smooth. Bold face liars, yes, smooth, no.
I’ve also known women that fall for schmucks like that guy in the video. Everybody knew he was a schmuck and a liar. I suspect she really did too, but she was accept virtual any halfassed lie as a rationale for his behavior. She wanted to believe.
I’ve also know confidence men like Madoff, literally sitting in Fed prison now having swindled millions. Not really smooth either. Again, pretty bold face liar. He played their greed and somewhat ignorance. But I’ve seen some of the promises and the BS meter went right off.
The common thread is they want to believe. The liars aren’t particularly good.[/quote]
In some cases they are very, very good liars. You’re right about some people being painfully naive when it’s obvious someone is a scammer, but I’ve known times when whole families and communities have been duped. Not sure that’s what’s happened here, since the idiot in this video seems pretty darn proud of his “accomplishments” and should have been easy to spot; OTOH, others can be surprisingly believable when they pretend to be upstanding, decent people.
Another anecdote: I once worked with a woman who was married with kids and whose MIL lived with them in their home. She came to find out that her husband of quite a few years had another entire family not far away (with kids about the same age as hers), and the woman who was supposed to be her husband’s mother was just some woman he had met and invited to live with them.
