The Rip-Off Book: The Complete Guide to Frauds, Con Games, Swindles and Rackets

by Victor Santoro

Professional methods and techniques for information and intelligence gathering... now revealed for you to use. Now you can find out anything you want to know about anyone you want to know about Satisfy your need to know with these revealing professional manuals on investigation, crime and police sciences.Learn what frauds are, how they work, how to protect yourself, and how to strike back when you're the victim.-- Classic Cons-- Land Swindles-- The...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0915179180
• ISBN13: 9780915179183
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Loompanics Unlimited
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Timeless

Although published more than a decade ago, before the Internet age, the scams in this book are still be renewed with new faces in today's world. Read all about them and how you can defend yourself. A good start if you think you can't fall for a scam somewhere. The most common scams today are the infamous Nigerian 419 scams, inheritance and lottery scams. Educate yourself before you become a victim.

Looking at the Con World

Santoro's put together a thoughtful and straight forward hands-on look into the world of petty scams and con games. Released in the mid 80s, The Rip-Off Book still holds up by giving a detailed glimpse into those manipulative fraudsters many of us have had the pleasure of dealing with for at least a few moments in our lives. Santoro gears the book towards the typical scams and rip-offs perpetrated against working people and small businesses. He points out how the standard con man is typically an intelligent fellow who looks quite presentable and definitely fits no preconceived notion of what a fraud artist may look like. A plethora of scams are unveiled, such as the envelope switch, three-card monte, the inspector ploy, the bank examiner swindle, the sheet writer scam, and myriad others. Santoro has a knack for laying these frauds out and explaining them in an insightful manner. At one point he discusses high pressure sales techniques some con men employ; he points out that they'll often act rude and try to make the victim look like a cretin, and even try and embarrass the victim if they don't sign on the dotted line. Included is an interesting chapter discussing the difference between phone scams and postal rip-offs. He points out that generally phone companies could care less whether frauds are carried out via their lines, thus telephone frauds far out pace postal cons, since the postal service utilizes a healthy staff of postal inspectors versus the ambivalence shown by the phone companies. The Rip-Off Book is probably at its most informative when it delves into the difficulty of defining just what a fraud is. Santoro demonstrates that many times it can be a gray area, given that many cons are identified by law enforcement as civil rather than criminal matters. A helpful final section looks at passive defensive techniques citizens can use to inoculate themselves from these manipulative scammers who prey on both the gullible and the savvy. Although a bit dated (having since been updated at least once or twice; updated versions of course include chapters on the burgeoning field of Internet scams) The Rip-Off Book is a classic work on street frauds, stuffed full of valuable information, that holds up nicely and would certainly be helpful for anyone to peruse. It comes out of the fabulous and always iconoclastic "Loompanics" publishing house.