Larry Weidel breaks down how con artists work: fast talkers, vague answers, artificial urgency, and excessive charm. He shares stories of trusted colleagues who defrauded him, then explains how to protect yourself by slowing down, demanding clear answers, and checking references.
Have you ever heard something that sounds too good to be true? Well, pay attention because that's your first clue that you need to turn on your BS detector. Trust those instincts. Because frauds give themselves away. They can't help it. And you just have to know what to look for. And so what are the red flags? They'll probably be talking fast. They give vague answers, they push urgency. Once in a lifetime opportunity, act now or lose out. And they're incredibly likable. They agree with, they're looking for ways they can find out, agree with this, I like this person. They know if you don't like them, you're never going to like their idea. So they're going to push urgency and likability. And so what you want to do is slow the whole process down, ask real questions and don't be satisfied with vague answers. Get clear answers. And the sign of that it's time to walk away and cut the conversation short is if you don't get those clear answers. So the danger is and why it works on people, you want to break the danger down because even smart, successful people get caught. This is not something, the reason we're talking about this is we've talked about making your time count 1% better. Think positive. And what happens is frauds can derail you. They can put you on massive derailing of time, energy, effort, resources. They can get to you emotionally. And so even when it happens to everybody, I don't know if there's anybody walking on the planet who's not gotten con at one time or another. Because we want to give people the benefit of the doubt. We want to, we just believe the best in people most of the time. But frauds are pros. And if you've got resources, somebody's going to come and try and take them. And so the frauds come. They're smooth, they're likable, they're funny, very, very convincing. That doesn't automatically mean they're a scam, but it makes it a whole lot easier for them to pull it off. So what can you do? Well, one thing, don't think you're too clever to be scammed. That can't happen to me. Oh yes, it can. Check references. Then check again. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It's the person that you think is unlikely to con you that's probably going to be able to pull it off. I mean we found, I found that over my career. I just couldn't believe when the legal people would come and want to be Checking out. One of my people have been in business with me for 20 years. He's the Methodist man of the year. I mean everybody loves him. And then I found out he was conning everybody in his church and his relatives, taking their money. You don't have to make your checkout, you know, your financial check out to the company, just make it to me and I'll send it in. And you never did. And that got, got away with that for 20 years. And so things happen in this world. I mean I could go on for hours. I could also tell you that my tax attorney, when I got embezzled out of about I don't know how many millions of dollars by my right hand, 16 year most trusted personal assistant, the tax attorney told me, he said like at the bank, he said it's the person you don't suspect that gets away with it. He said like it's never the suspicious, long haired, greasy haired, smooth talking guy at the bank that embezzles. It's always the silver haired grandmother that makes cookies for everybody. So you could be kind, keep your antenna up, look for behaviors that not are not quite right and look out for yourself because there are these kind of people out there in the world that usually they give themselves a way if you're paying attention. So if someone comes to you, especially with an investment, they're not trying to embezzle or something, they're trying to do a fraud. They're trying to get you to invest time, energy and effort in some too good to be true thing. Before you jump in, make sure you're not jumping off a cliff. Make sure you're sure.
