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:

    If the child-caregiver relationship is nurturing, reliable and often even joyous, the child’s confidence in human relationships as a source of comfort and reciprocity will be strengthened and expanded in spite of the parent’s absence. The child will learn that not only are the parents to be trusted but that other people are trustworthy as well.
    Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)

    There is a marvelous turn and trick to British arrogance; its apparent unconsciousness makes it twice as effectual.
    Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)