The audacity of swindlers is sometimes astounding.
It's bad enough that they set out to deceive by taking advantage of the average person's faith in his fellow man. What's worse is how they react when the patsy starts to wise up and begins to ask questions.
Then they lay it on thick.
Oh, the theatrics, the feigned indignation or the torrent of tears that results from being “falsely” accused! “You can't possibly believe such a horrible thing!” they'll tell you. Or, “That hurts. That really hurts.”
It doesn't stop there. If you refuse to accept that you're to blame for having unwarranted suspicions, if you persist in doubting their intentions, they'll next appeal to pity and try to persuade you that they were compelled by force of circumstance to engage in misrepresentation – a desperate need for money to save an ailing relative, an ethical handicap stemming from childhood deprivation, maybe some combination of calamities.
When all else fails, they'll come clean, admit criminality, and then brazenly insist that it's your own fault for being so foolish and trusting them in the first place.
Do you get your money back at long last, the money they took from you under false pretenses? No, of course not. If you thought you were being cheated, you should have said something sooner. Never mind that they lied to you from the get-go and did everything possible along the way to keep you bamboozled.
The statute of limitations always favors the confidence man.
The asbestos lawyers at Simon Greenstone seem to know how this hustler’s game is played. Just last week, they asked a federal judge to dismiss a fraud suit filed against them by Garlock Sealing Technologies – not because the charge was false, but because Garlock may have known about it but waited past the statute of limitations to do something about it.
If they succeed in running out the clock, other possible remedies may still be available, such as professional reprisals and fraud prosecution.