This is an idea for another relational design assigment.

Con artists’ scams come in different flavours. Some are clever deals in which the the buyer (the con artist) gets away with most of the goods for very little money (explained later). Others are elaborate, highly personal engagements in which years are spent to build a relation of complete trust, before the con artist takes his/her profit. Some scams are purely one-to-one real-life engagements (check Where is Gary, by the Flemish Potemkino) Others involve series of fake online identities, websites, phishing tricks etcetera (like the famous nigerian 419 scam)

The assignment here would be to design a scam that can be played out within a week, in which a person you know from a distance would help you by spending money and time for you. (be prepared for a refund after the assignment is over) . Technical term for a scam’s victim is: the ‘mark’.

The assignment here is:
- to engineer a sufficient amount of trust in the mark, so the mark takes your requests serious,
- then to install in the mark the desire to help
- and then to install in the mark the perspective on the actual ability to help
- and to trigger the mark into action

Details and further constraints and conditions will be added later.