Old Timey Con-Artistry

Their techniques may have changed a little, but the general principles of the con atrist remain the same as they were when this article from a 1930s issue of Popular Mechanics:

Recently a middle-aged man walked up to the teller’s window in a small mid-western bank and asked to be given a fifty dollar bill in exchange for bills of smaller denomination. The teller accepted the stack of small bills and gave the man a fifty. On counting the bills, however, the teller discovered and called to the man’s attention the fact that there were ninety-nine dollars; forty-nine in small bills, and a fifty.

The stranger thanked the teller and found a one dollar bill, asking that the pile then be changed for a hundred dollar bill. This the teller did, and the stranger walked away. Immediately another man started talking to the teller, asking change for a ten and directions for reaching a nearby town.

Then the teller “came to.” The bank had been bunked out of fifty dollars, as the first fifty given the stranger had not been returned. The second man had been the “cover-up” to keep the teller’s mind off the transaction and to give the first a chance to get away.

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