“You will spend $50,000 to $100,000—maybe more—and you will probably win the judgments you seek, but you will spend the next few years and untold sums trying to collect on those judgments.”
The person taking advantage of the legal system knows the game: “I have taken so much of their money that they won’t be able to afford to come after me.”
Through my extensive search, I learned that Corey had built a confusing and dizzying maze of LLCs. He had assets shielded in other people’s names. He had local counsel tied up. He had back-end deals in place that would bring him back into the money once everyone else had lost theirs. His projects were designed to fail, eventually, for one simple reason—he didn’t have to pay anyone back that way. In fact, he had learned a different version of the American dream: There’s more money in failure than success. He’s in the money and off the hook, and out pitching another development.
Corey will admit he owes you, vehemently reaffirm his full intention to pay you back. He actually seems to believe his own far-fetched stories, and this is what makes him so convincing and helps him gain the confidence of those with money to invest. This is the oldest motif of the confidence man: convince yourself to the point that others want to come along for the ride.
Below is my confession of the painful lessons I learned about the modern game of the financial con—lessons that have come out of great personal cost, the least of which is dollars lost. Seeing my mother not be able to sleep well for years in what should be the peaceful twilight of life is a far worse consequence than seeing hard-earned money evaporate.
The M.O. of the Modern Con Art
• Establish yourself with “solid” investments and a history of payments.
• Partner with credible professionals in the financial industry, and play off their established reputations to meet new marks for your schemes.
• Provide official-looking documents that are not worth the paper they are written on.
• Create multiple entities and keep assets moving between them.