Some of you may be aware (I think it's been mentioned previously) that Season 1 Episode 3 (aired 23 Feb 2006) of the Real Hustle TV show featured a Jam Auction. You can see the relevant clip here, and it is fascinating:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nI060qh8gBc

While this particular method is obviously morally questionable, the whole pyschology behind this really interests me. Is the psychology and approach employed here much different than Jack Nyberg on Don Driver's DVD? One difference, I gather, is the idea of returning the buyer's money, but perhaps there are more important differences. Or is the basic idea and concept somewhat similar?

I'm asking out of genuine ignorance, so I look forward to being corrected and enlightened if I'm way off the mark.

This so called Jam Auction on the Real Hustle as far as I can tell was a complete set up.All actors is my guess.

I have worked Jam Auctions for many many years and this is all B.S.Its not even close to a British Run Out Joint.(where it was filmed)

If you really want to know what a REAL Jam Auction is than I suggest you just break down and buy the DVD.This is one of the reasions I put it out,so you won't have to guess anymore and stop asking questions about Jam Auction's.

End of story.....
Don

Thanks for the reply Don. I'm not sure what you mean by "set up" - but certainly the men pitching the jam auction in that video clip are "acting", in fact one of them is magician Paul Wilson. Did the TV producers just get it wrong in calling it a "Jam Auction", and they'd have been more correct to call it a "Run Out"?

I suspect that the term "Run Out" is perhaps some reference to the conclusion of what is seen in the Real Hustle clip, where the salesmen shut up shop and leave, failing to deliver on their promises of bigger and better bargains? Am I correct in understanding that a real jam auction has a different conclusion?

Thanks for your patience and help! I'd never heard of Jam Auctions until today, and as I wrote earlier, I'm finding the whole concept a most fascinating exercise in human psychology!

I think I need to make a couple of points very clear.

In the UK, The Real Hustle is made by the BBC. At the top of every show we clearly state that the people who are hustled are conned for real. That is a fact.

There are many other details behind how we accomplish that for TV but when the mark gets scammed, they get scammed for real. We spend a lot of time and effort to make sure of this and the BBC insists upon it. We have to provide detailed information about how each scam is prepared and filmed to abide by the BBC's strict guidelines.

The clip you have here was mistakenly called the "Jam Auction" by our producer.

It is actually quite an old scam called "The Bouncer". When we pulled this in Chapel Market we were shocked by how successful it was - we even ran out of stock!

In season two we built a proper run-out joint after attending several auctions and secretly recording them.

Due to the realities of filming a TV show we had to make a couple of compromises but we successfully ran a real auction for real people in Manchester.

A few weeks after it aired I was approached on the street by a guy who told me we got the run-out all wrong. He ran it a different way and seemed happy to give me notes. The principles were actually the same but the details varied.

I'll be very interested to see what Don describes in his DVD.

Our job on the Real Hustle is to entertain and inform the public. Making these shows requires a great deal of work and effort from many people and their are good reasons for the choices we make.

The result is that Alex, Jess and I have been given the opportunity to pull over 250 different scams.

If we were professional thieves, we would just pick one or two scams and make a living at the public's expense!

The "Jam Auction" in series one was misnamed but it was a real scam and relates to how pitch scams are operated today. The run-out joint in season two was based on the way jam auctions were being operated at that time (our patter was even taken from what we recorded in London).

I hope that answers your questions.

P

Then buy it...
AL

Paul, thank you for being so kind as to share something about the background to the "Jam Auction" segment on the "Real Hustle" and your explanation of how the producer misnamed it. From the few clips I've seen of your show on the internet, I've been impressed by the work put into making each hustle. As far as this viewer is concerned, it is both usefully informative and remarkably entertaining. Job well done!

I did find an interesting thread elsewhere on the web which suggests that the "Run Out" is a British version of the US "Jam Auction", but is far more vicious and evil. According to the comments there, the UK "Run Out" intends to function as a more deliberate and dishonorable scam than the US "Jam Auction", which is a more diluted version of a similar concept, but is not morally questionable to the same degree that its UK counter-part clearly is. There's some fascinating reading and personal anecdotes here:
http://geniimagazine.com/forum/cgi-bin/u......t=000037

Wasn't it pretty well implied he planned on buying it??? I don't get it.

Paul,
I'm glade you guys didn't use actors and it wasn't a set up.I stand corrected.

I got your order today.I'm sure you'll enjoy watching a master at the Jam like Jack doing the pitch.

Thanks for your business and have a good one,
Don