A Con Artist Sold the Eiffel Tower Twice — by Listening, Not Selling

We tend to think con artists are smooth talkers and persuasive selle[image error]rs, but listening is their most essential quality, says Maria Konnikova, who has written a new book on con artistry. Here she discusses the case of Victor Lustig, a Frenchman who sold the Eiffel Tower twice for scrap metal to two different buyers. Too embarrassed at being taken in, the buyers never reported Lustig.

As Konnikova explains, Lustig literally wrote the book the con artistry. Inhis work 10 Commandments of the Con...