A ruse is a deception.
Ardid is a term whose first meanings mentioned in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) are out of use. The concept was usually used as an adjective that referred to someone insightful , cunning or fearless .
Nowadays, however, trick is a noun that refers to a deception or a scam . A scheme, in this framework, is an act that is carried out with malice and skill to achieve a well-determined objective .
For example: “With a ruse, two young people stole one hundred thousand pesos from an elderly man in Villa San Javier,” “Asserting that I have several legal cases is a ruse by the opposition so that people do not pay attention to my proposals,” “ “The supposed competition is nothing more than a ploy to advertise the new brand.”
What is a ruse
Schemes are tricks or scams . The intention is to cause confusion in another person so that they misinterpret a situation and do something that they do not really want to do. Take the case of a publisher that announces the organization of a literary contest whose prize is supposed to be the publication of a book. Writers who wish to participate must pay a registration fee of $30 to be eligible to present their texts. One hundred authors decide to register for the contest and the publisher, in this way, raises $3,000 . When announcing the ruling, the organizers inform that the prize is “void” . In this way, it is shown that the contest was a scheme for the publisher to obtain money without even publishing a work.
Situations like the one described in the previous paragraph are very common, especially in the artistic field, since the enthusiasm of the participants to achieve the dissemination of their works comes into play there. Given the difficulty of publishing a book or a music album, for example, the chances of deceiving an artist with a scheme of this nature are very high, and this is how thousands of people have been raising money for decades.
The Internet era has opened the doors to new strategies for this type of crime , which stands out for its special trait of cowardice. Thanks to the possibility of hiding our true identity behind a pseudonym and the ease with which we can create a website, opening a fake company to carry out a massive scam scheme does not present great challenges.
With the widespread use of the Internet, the schemes multiplied.
Fake job offers
Outside the artistic or vocational field, the scheme can also occur in another of the most vulnerable areas of society: unemployed people. On the Internet there are many examples of false jobs that are presented as "unique opportunities" that no one in their right mind should reject, and to access them the supposed employers demand a small sum of money that they justify by sending a package. initiation or carrying out different procedures.
Since this is a payment that even an unemployed person can afford, the plan is virtually foolproof. This is just proof of the degree of cruelty and lack of consideration that our actions can reach, something that can also be seen in activities such as spiritualism and quackery.
The trick and the cunning
The cunning of the person who wants to commit the deception comes into play in the ruse.
A common scam is this: an elderly man may receive a visit from a man who claims to be a friend of one of his children. Through a speech with twists and turns, he gets the victim to allow him to enter his house. Once inside, the criminal informs him that he needs to collect a debt from his son: in this way, the old man, believing that he is helping his descendant solve a problem , gives the money to the scammer.