Scammed!

[Paul Green]

R. Paul Wilson sent me a message:
"This Wednesday at 9pm on The History Channel (USA only) is the premier of SCAMMED, a two-hour special featuring the biggest con game I have pulled to date, exposing the secrets of professional con artists and grifters. Please spread the word!"
Just doing what my friend has asked. Hope to see all of you watching!
Respectfully,
Paul [color:#33FF33]Green[/color]

[Brad Henderson]

R. Paul Wilson sent me a message:
" a two-hour special featuring the biggest con game I have pulled to date

'featuring' or 'is'?

;)

[Richard Stokes]

Here's more:
"SCAMMED unpacks the history of cons and con artists. There are essentially five cons that are the basis for every swindle since man walked upright. For example, today's Nigerian email scam is nothing more than a derivation of a Spanish Conquistador's bait and switch con that started around the year 1400.

Paul Wilson, dubbed the "World's Greatest Con Man," and his team take viewers inside long and complicated schemes and even the micro-cons that have plagued unsuspecting people for hundreds, even thousands of years. Paul has successfully pulled more scams on real people than anyone in history, but he doesn't take their money. His goal is to expose these cons, hustles and schemes so that he can teach others how to avoid them. Over the course of the program, see Paul play out one long con on a designated mark.

Peppering the show will also be infamous short cons, such as the "bottle cap" con, popular in 1920s New York, in which a sleight of hand trick adds weight to a bottle cap, allowing it to be thrown further than expected and bet on.

In addition to historic cons, Paul will also show how many of these scams have been adapted to be brutally effective with today's technology. While the tricks may be the same, the stakes are higher; with more than money on the line. Social Security numbers, bank account information, and loads of private information are sitting there for the taking... but only if you let a con man in."

[pixsmith]

Operacion Repo meets the Sting.
there's kind of a tru tv vibe to this show

i made it through about twenty minutes at the first sitting. the narration and the camera work were a little wearying. ill try to give it more of a look later.

Anyone else watch it?

[Tom Gilbert]

I watched it also, and agree with the camera work. The constant static and out of focus effects got very old, as did a recap of the show every fifteen minutes. The content was interesting though.

[Diamond Jim Tyler]

The show was entertaining. I didn't mind the camera work at all. I did find the continuity confusing when they stole the people's cars, told them how they did it, then still had the cars to use in the "long con".

My friend James Munton and his wife Jelita just released a modern day con book titled THE CON. It is very well done and is getting good reviews. For more about it see http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/144220 ... 1442207310

[Kent Gunn]

The wife recorded it for me.

The show held my interest and I watched the entire thing. I liked the small cons used to supplant the bigger cons. I didn't find the car scams confusing. It made sense they got returned after they used them for the bigger setup. They could well have explained to the folks who got them stolen initially how the show worked and they nicely played along.

I found R. Paul completely believable in his role. His supporting crew seemed like con artists to me.

I'll be watching any and all episodes I get to see.

Huge congratulations to Mr. Wilson for having a TV show in the U.S. I'm glad a sleight-of-hand magician is on television with a huge career!

[pixsmith]

Still couldn't like the show as much as I wanted to, but it's fine. I have to weigh the "good for magicians" against the "ack -- I hate this style of 'reality' tv,' and the magic won. Thought it was tolerable, not great, but better than most anything else that was on my other 459 channels at that time.

Just got to read, after I pleaded with James, some advance stuff from the new book Diamond Jim mentioned called The Con... by Texas' (by way of some land across the pond, and other places) own James Munton. I think James is a great guy, and very entertaining to talk with as well as watch as a performer, and his talent extends to the written word too, evidently.

It's great stuff, well told, and a great read, as well as some frighteningly true stories. Check out the reviews at Amazon, but if you like this kind of thing, I can recommend the book based on the little I have seen. It's on my list at least!

There is more info on the book at http://www.scamfu.com/the-book -- It looks like Jim has an affiliate link to Amazon above too. Thanks to James for making himself a Texan. Check it out, and again, congrats to R. Paul Wilson for making it to US TV.

[Bill Mullins]

Looks like you can buy the DVD.

[Richard Kaufman]

I've just ordered a copy! Thanks for the link, Bill.