What a Con Artist Looks For in a Scam Victim!

The chosen

Con artists choose you very carefully.  They are only interested in those people who can be turned around to believe in them without question, who can be manipulated to believe in their illusions.  They don’t merely seek out the greedy or the weak or the stupid.  Not at all.  They seek out the needy. They sniff and snuffle around until they find someone who has an unfulfilled desire that even you yourself may be unaware of until the carrot is dangled in front of your face.

Con artists will stalk anyone whose weaknesses or strengths can be used to advantage.  Scan through the character traits below, and you will see the con artist’s menu.  As far as he is concerned any character trait can be exploited and manipulated once your needs have been established.  No one is immune.

Character traits: Pride, Ego, Anxiety, Ignorance, Ageing, Youth, Dreams, Security, Insecurity, Fear, Greed, Loneliness, Popularity, Assumed knowledge, Success, Failure, Illness, Self-Confidence, Desperation, Vulnerability, Ambition, Laziness, Wisdom, Hateful, Loving, any trait will do.

Scam victims: Yuppies, Volunteers, Attorneys, Wannabes, Stars, Do-gooders, Malcontents, Authority Figures, Politicians, Law Enforcement Officers, Single Moms, Students, Officials, Bankers, Sports Figures, Professors,  Scientists, Psychologists, Blue Collar Workers, Unemployed, Doctors, Nurses, Physically Challenged, Elders, Children, Corporate Executives, Insurance Agents, Accountants, Real Estate Agents, … You name it!

You can also safely add “Municipal officials” to this list. Seems to me that they, at least in this town, definitely seem to possess a lot of these character traits. Pride? Check! Ego? Ditto. Ignorance? Uh huh. Self-Confidence? Boat loads! Needy? Don’t get me started!! You get the picture.

In light of last night’s meeting in Trenton’s City Council, we know a few more details about the whole Innovative Payroll Services (IPS) mess that has brought the City to seeking to finance nearly Five Million Dollars in debt to replace funds that IPS stole from Trenton last year. And those details are enough to demonstrate that we got scammed. Royally. We weren’t alone in being victimized by IPS and its principal John Scholtz.

But we are – by far – the biggest victim that IPS conned. Because we were probably the easiest among all of their clients from whom they could steal. They did so, repeatedly for months! months! right under our noses, despite many warnings and red flags from the state and federal governments. I’d almost say we deserved to get taken like that, except I – along with every other Trenton taxpayer – have to shoulder the burden of digging the chuckleheads who run this town out of this mess.

One other thing we learned last night is that the Eric Jackson Administration seems to be taking no action to ensure that the scam we fell for with IPS won’t happen again, in some other way with some other con artists. In the absence of any real, visible changes, the City of Trenton is still a ripe, plump chicken ready to be plucked. And plucked. And plucked.

According to the account in today’s Trenton Times by Cristina Rojas, “Between Aug. 15 and Jan. 15, the city’s payroll provider, Innovative Payroll Services, failed to pay $4,697,528 in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service ($4,076,845) and the state ($574,256) that had been withheld from employees’ paychecks.” So at least we finally know the figure for taxes owed to the State. Along with the IRS funds, IPS ripped us off by a few bucks under $4.7 Million Dollars.

According to the Complaint filed by the US Attorney’s Office against IPS’ John Scholtz on March 15 of this year (which you can find here), “The investigation to date shows that, as a result of SCHOLTZ’s scheme, more than 50 IPS clients sustained over $5.6 million in losses based on federal tax deposits that IPS failed to make, as well as associated penalties and interest. [Emphasis mine – KM]”

Let’s restate that. Fifty clients were victimized by IPS to the tune of $5.6 Million Dollars. Of that total, close to $4.1 Million was scammed from Trenton. The rest of that total, about $1.5 Million, came from the remaining 50-odd clients. That averages out to around only $30,000 each for all of the other victims. Now, I’m sure that most if not all of IPS’s other clients were likely a lot smaller than the City of Trenton, and a loss of $30,000 may hurt as much to them as $5 Million hurts to Trenton. I do not mean to their losses mean less than Trenton’s.

But.

Fifty other clients only lost about $30 Grand each. Trenton, the soft touch, the easy mark, the unsuspecting rube, was cleaned out of FIVE MILLION DOLLARS.

I don’t know about you, but in addition to the anger and outrage I’ve about this crime, I can add a profound sense of embarrassment, at being such gullible victims

I read all of those emails from poor city business analyst Mary Henry – all of them copying City Comptroller Janet Schoenhaar, remember – to IPS, asking, “Um, we’re getting all these notices from the IRS about missing payments,”  and I have a mental image of the folks at IPS snickering and laughing behind our backs as they wrote, every time, “Oh, we got this. We’re working on it! LOL”

OK. We still don’t know the details of what happened in City Hall last year, that allowed Millions of Dollars to be stolen under our noses. As of last night, it seems that City Council will not hold the Administration accountable for providing either an explanation of past failures OR plans for preventing things like this in the future. That doesn’t look like it will happen. The Administration is stonewalling, and Council will, once again, cave. They will probably end up rubber-stamping the issuance of long-term debt to just make this tax problem just go away.

After a while, this incident, like so many others before it, will fade in the public’s memory, both in and outside the City. Individual employees and public officials may (or more likely, may not) be held accountable. Some might even be found to be liable for crimes as inside accomplices, although there has been nothing reported to date that might suggest this as a possibility. In that instance, guilty parties will be judged accordingly, move along to their fates, and be forgotten with the rest.

What will last a lot longer to fade away is the long-standing and persistent image of the City of Trenton as a place full of incompetence, easy pickings for con artists looking to pull their next scams.

Trenton. We Welcome Grifters.