Confidence Trick

A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual operating alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty, honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, naïveté or greed.

Read more about Confidence Trick:  Terminology, History, Vulnerability To Confidence Tricks

Famous quotes containing the words confidence and/or trick:

    I cannot give them my confidence; pardon me, gentlemen, confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom: youth is the season of credulity.
    William, Earl Of Pitt (1708–1778)

    The notion of a universality of human experience is a confidence trick and the notion of a universality of female experience is a clever confidence trick.
    Angela Carter (1940–1992)