Column | Flawless scammers – NRC

You have scammers in all shapes and sizes, but they have one thing in common: a lack of compassion. I almost called it a lack of empathy, but that would have been extremely dubious.

Because empathy do have scammers, their empathy is so great that they can flawlessly estimate how their future victims will behave. Are they old, lonely and vulnerable? Then look them up at home, or call them, pretend to be the police, suggest that their money and goods are in danger, unless they give it subiet to you – and leave it like a scammer in the night.

This form of scams is increasingly common in the Netherlands. There is a lot of warning in the media, but apparently that does not have sufficient effect. It has not happened to me yet, a bit to my regret, because I would like to welcome such a fake agent at the front door with a sincere: « That suit is good for you. »

Yet the question is whether I would also respond as funny if that agent shouts with a skipping voice: « Sir, you immediately come out, because a life -threatening fire has broken out in this building. » Would I not start to doubt, especially if some fake fire winkers appear in the background? Because when they speak the truth, there is little time for doubt. There you are, shaky in your thin pajamas, because you had just planned to go to bed. « Hurry up, sir, » they shout again, « we will close. »

They arouse a deep revulsion with me, such scammers, if I think of them. Which of us has never even been scammed? I remember from my youth that friendly, polite couple that offered to take a photo series about our family. They arranged an appointment, arrived neatly on time, did their work while we posed with stiff smiles, a deposit with the commitment that they would send the photos as quickly as possible – and disappeared inaccessible from our lives.

It has, afterwards, almost something hilarious, but that word did not apply to the feelings in our family. Maybe that’s why I had some trouble with the double novel later Lijmen/Het Been by Willem Elsschot, a masterful book about refined deception. The victims – companies and Catholic institutions – are tempted to have a large number of copies of the so -called World journal To order, in which a praising article about them will appear. Later it appears that magazine does not have subscribers and the cheated self must look for customers.

I first read the book as fiction, but afterwards I noticed that Elsschot had described his own activities as a scammer – a word that is rarely used for him. The injured party Lijmen/Het Been, Mrs. Lauwereyssen, was in reality the mother superior of a large number of boarding schools. Elsschot put her 100,000 copies of his fake magazine. When she changed his mind and sent a lawyer to him, he was pascated by his companion Jules Valenpint, a strong former circus coach: « I count to three, and if you are not outside on three, I will kick you off the stairs. »

A great writer turned out to be an ordinary scammer. I almost felt….

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