Deconstructing TVs The Real Hustle
TruTVs New Show Wants To Teach You How to Avoid Con Artists
The Real Hustle, a show on TruTV, shows viewers how to avoid con artists and keep their assets safe from scam. Yet, some buzz suggests the show, itself, is the scam.
A reality TV show which teaches ordinary citizens how to avoid con artists. Using hidden cameras and three pro-scammers, this series allows everyone to see the tricks of the trade - and thus, how to keep themselves safeguarded against them. It sounds like a great idea…but, it’s not an original one. Internet gossip even suggests The Real Hustle uses not ordinary people, but actors.
Deconstructing The Real Hustle
The channel: TruTV, formerly known as Court TV. The con artists: Apollo Robbins, Dani Marco and Ryan Oakes.
The premise: Three scam artists go out and about in New York City, applying their trickiest cons to steal bank accounts, vehicles and any amount of loot they can nab.
The catch: Cameras record it all for general viewing and reality TV pleasure, and once the con is complete the victims get all their assets back.
The scam operations performed by the cast of The Real Hustle are unbelievably slick. One episode featured the three of them in Central Park, a heist involving one woman’s purse. This may seem like small potatoes for big con artists, but the story doesn’t end with purse snatching. The purse snatcher himself then approached the victim as a caring, concerned Good Samaritan, even allowing her to use his phone to call her bank and cancel her cards. Here’s the rub: she wasn’t on the phone with the bank but with another of the con artists. Instead of canceling her card, she gave him her all-important PIN. This would have given any true con artist full access to her entire account, which could have then been promptly cleaned out.
Undoubtedly, the scam is one the general public ought to know about. The information is even vital when one considers how often people in big cities like New York are victims of identity theft, or any number of scams which might rob them of every material possession. Learning how to avoid con artists by finding out how they work makes for a brilliant show.
How to Avoid Con Artists
...A show which existed long before TruTV put The Real Hustle on the air. In fact, The Real Hustle as a TV program came to the BBC in 2006 and gained plenty of British fans. The title and premise of the show were both used by TruTV for this new, U.S.-based version. Even some of the scams depicted on the U.S. version first appeared on the UK version, according to Internet heresy and comments. Some forums even have fans claiming the show - in both UK and U.S. versions - uses extras instead of real people.
True, some of the hidden camera angels which are achieved seem a little unbelievable (how did they get that shot?). Even some of the dialogue sounds contrived, which could just be a strange anomaly. Regardless of how the great shots and interesting angels are achieved, and whether or not the victims are genuine or coached, learning how to avoid con artists is a viable lesson. The Real Hustle offers information on how con artists work, and teaches people how to protect themselves against scams. Is it as “tru” as TruTV says? Does it even matter when the information is useful just the same?
