[a1369209993]

> understanding what they are doing works almost every time.

To be fair, understanding what they are doing requires being smart yourself (usualy not as smart as coming up with it in the first place, but only usually), and while smartness isn't always or completely unlearnable, in practice it's usually hard and/or impractical, especially if you're not smart to begin with.

Of course, distinguishing (honest) smart people from (possibly smart) con artists also generally requires being smart, so that doesn't help much.