I recently read a pair of articles one involving Steve Stricker and the other a Russian ship named the Dmitrii Donskoi I think illustrate the difference between a fool and a victim. Both stories involve scam artists taking money from people but there is a fundamental difference in my opinion of those who fell for the tricks.

Stricker is a notable golfer who is captain of this year’s Ryder Cup team. A con-artists contacted a charity hosting a golf tournament and promised them that Stricker, his cousin, would be happy to attend and support the organization. The golf course and the charity accepted the story and promoted the event. People paid $7,500 to support the charity and spend time with Stricker. Unfortunately, Stricker knew nothing of the event and the con-artist skipped town with the money.

Back in 1905 a Russian fleet was sent to the Pacific in order to support Russian activity in the region and the Dmitrii Donskoi, an armored cruiser built in the 1880s, was part of that armada. She was sunk near an island in what is now South Korea. Back in 1999 a South Korean construction company in financial trouble claimed they had found the wreck and that it had on it 200 tons of gold coins. The share price of the company went up briefly but the claim was found to be false.

Recently another South Korean company, this a treasure hunting business, made the same claim about the Dmitrii Donskoi. They collected millions of dollars from investors and their stock price rose precipitously. As like the first claim, nothing came of it and investors were out large sums of money.

What do these two scam incidents have in common? Victims. People paid money to the charity in order to play with Stricker. People paid money for stocks and invested money in the hopes of recouping their cash and more. In both cases people lost their money.

Here is the difference. The charity event and the golf course promoting Stricker’s appearance made claims that were not unreasonable. I’m certain Stricker does attend such events over the course of the year. Fans expectation of seeing Stricker were reasonable. Certainly, the charity and the golf course should have done more diligence in ensuring Stricker was going to attend but the individuals who paid to see Stricker, and were scammed, behaved reasonable. I feel bad for them.

Meanwhile the Dmitrii Donskoi was never purported to have any gold on it and there was absolutely no reason to suspect it might. It was an older ship, slow and vulnerable, being sent into a war zone. The Russian government, if they needed to transfer gold, could have done it by rail with significantly greater ease. The amount of gold claimed to be aboard the Dmitrii Donskoi was equivalent to ten percent of all the gold mined in the history of the planet. The idea that there was, or is, gold aboard the wreck is patently ridiculous and anyone who spends ten minutes researching the project can learn this fact quite easily. I have no sympathy for any fool that fell for this scam.

The sad part is both scams will most certainly be used again. I suspect unwise, gold mad, morons will be pumping money into the pockets of con-artists mentioning the Dmitrii Donskoi. I also imagine that charities and their donators will be duped.

Not that it much matters, but idiots need not apply for my sympathy. For all others, I’m sorry some asshole used your good intentions to steal your money.

Tom Liberman