Deceit

26/01/2024 Nilson Lattari

If someone deceives us, this situation is due to our life experience. If we are deceived twice, this situation is due to our ignorance. If we are deceived three times, this situation is due to our behaviour and our belief that everything will gonna be alright in the end.
In the mid-70s to early 80s, especially in Brasil, there were groups of men who sold products and objects while gathering people to buy them, and in exchange, these neophytes would become members of the group. After becoming members of the group, their mission was to engage new members and, of course, the older members would sell these products to them.
This method allowed them to earn money if they sold more products connected to the admission of new members. They were regarded with better positions in the group because if their neophytes sold products, they earned commissions over their neophytes.
Of course, the profit of these groups came from the admissions of new members because to access the group, it was necessary to buy their products. Then, people needed to recruit new members to recover their initial investment. Merely, it was a Pyramid Scheme.
These frauds exist until today, and there are no surprises in these actions. All the time, new people in the market are ready to be exploited, and other people to deceive them. There is no possibility to warn them about fraud in progress. There is a proverb that when the alms are great, be careful, but this proverb doesn’t have any effect on new, inexperienced, and ambitious people who imagine that they have found easy money.
In fact, fraud can be defined as a combination of two ambitious people: a smart guy selling to people who imagine themselves to be very smart.
Once I was invited to participate in a similar meeting. An important hotel in the city was chosen to host the event. On arrival, there was a well-dressed man wearing an elegant blue suit with a gold bracelet on his right wrist and a Rolex on his left. He also wore a tie with another gold bracelet and elegant shoes. The most prominent feature that stuck out to me was his thick Italian accent. He was trying to convey the idea of a winner within that enterprise that promised people the possibility of being a winner like him. Then, the big surprise was the product that they sold: soap in powder!
In my studies at the university, I read something about signal reading. It wasn’t semiotic yet, but some examples to define concepts of interpretation in literature. At that moment, a signal of alert enlightened me because the signals were clear. Then, I decided to observe people in the audience and not that man. One of his advisers asked me if everything was fine, and I answered that it was fine, evidently, the people’s look was fixed on him, the man. And the adviser was curious about that guy who was looking at the audience and not at the man. Everybody was wearing suits, as my talent scout told me, because it was important to create a prominent vibe, I deduced. In the end, suits are suits. There were women who wore elegant clothes, too.
Of course, I could see that frauds were facing me. How is it possible to enrich someone selling soap in powder? Obviously, the manufacturers or old members.
“I decided to elaborate a strategy” to run away from that place at the end of the audience. When the audience finished, I drove to the exit door. But there was a kind of security guard wearing a suit as well, who stopped me. And he told me I would have to talk to Giovanni, the lecturer. Then, at that moment, I played a scene like a good actor, something I had never done before. I knew how to transmit signals like them. I argued with the guard about my emotions when I heard Giovanni speaking because I remembered my Italian grandfather. Because of this, I needed to go outdoors to breathe fresh air. When the guy saw the expression of emotion on my face, he decided to allow me to go out, and I went back home.
There is no surprise when we deceive someone to avoid being deceived. If someone wants to be deceived, it is their problem, and mostly due to their ambition.