Con men have been around as long as we have. Or if you read the bible as history, they’ve been around even longer, what with the serpent preceding Adam in the creation chronicle – and the evolutionary one as well.

And of course they’re still with us.

But, logically, you’d think they wouldn’t be. After all, we’ve had centuries of scientific and analytical thought, and of objective observation and experimentation to separate bumpf from Shineola. So a flim-flam artist should be as obvious as the nose job on Cher’s face. But that’s not the case.

Throw half a brick in any direction, and you’ll hit a huckster of one sort or another, with with a great line of B.S., a truckload of testimonials and a bank account that rival the Nizam of Hyderabad’s.

Of course, it’s all based on The Promise. Yep, lose weight without diet or exercise. Gain wealth in the comfort of your home. Enter the Kingdom of Heaven through a generous weekly contribution.

The interesting thing is each con claims his is The Real Deal, as opposed to his rivals’, who are all lowlife frauds and phonies. Sadly, there are enough suckers for all the cons since they rarely get busted, go broke or are forced to get an honest job.

What amazes me isn’t the hustlers themselves, but the people who fall for them. We’d like to think they’re all goofy hayseeds who, having been stuck on the farm all their lives, are easy pickings for some slick city scheister. But that’s hardly the case. The victims are all ages, occupations, and social strata.

For example, you’d think the super-wealthy, being adept at managing great wealth, would spot a money hustler long before us wage slaves. But think again. Bernie Madoff fleeced ’em faster than a Times Square pickpocket. And he fleeced ’em for millions, if not billions.

Of course, the settings for hustlers have changed, as have the wares themselves. So while in the 1880s, “Professor” Krueger sold his Aztec Restorative and Tricopherous from the back of a horse-drawn wagon, today we have a D.C.H. (Doctor of Celtic Herbalism) using the internet to free humankind from the agonies of chilblains, bunions and the Green Gambool by selling sea salt soaks from the Outer Hebrides.

Contemporary electronic media make it easier to reach — and rip off — the Great Unwarshed, and a perfect example is The Curious Case of Madame K.

Gettin’ the needle …

Madame K is an alias for a friend of mine. I’ve known her for decades, and she’s someone you’d think would never fall for a hustle. She’s smart, centered, well-read and widely traveled. She’s also highly educated. And while I realize there’s sometimes no correlation between education and intelligence, except a negative one, in her case the one complements the other. And beyond all that, she has great common sense.

The medium for Mme. K’s conning was TV.

After a long day of work and dinner, Mme. K is sprawled out on the sofa, remote in hand. There’s a lull in the action, since none of her faves are on. So she channel surfs. Realty shows? Nope. News? Feh. Sports? Ugh. Finally, by process of elimination, she ends up watching an infomercial.

“Infomercial.” The very word itself is a con, since they’re all “mercial,” and no “info.” And even though their approaches seem obvious to the point of absurdity, they work. Otherwise, they wouldn’t exist.

This infomercial snags Mme. K’s interest since it’s about a sewing machine and she’s a skilled seamstress. All the women in her family sew; she’s done it since early childhood. At this point her only family member more skilled with thread and needle is her cousin Andrea, who is a Duchess of Domesticity. She not only sews to perfection, but she can cook, bake, paint, garden, decorate — you name it. I’ve no doubt if you gave her enough steel wool, she could knit a ’56 Ford.

Anyhow, the more Mme. K watches the ‘mercial, the more intrigued she becomes. While most infomercials succeed by making fantastic promises (“Get six-pack abs, cannonball biceps, spring-steel legs, while getting rid of zits and unwanted body hair!”), this one is the exact opposite: It brags about how little it does.

It’s a miniature sewing machine called The Mighty Midge and — as opposed to its big sisters — it makes only straight stitches.

So, you might ask, why would anyone – especially someone who already has a fine sewing machine — buy The Mighty Midge?

It’s a good question and of course the infomercial has all the answers.

First, it’s cheap – only $28. Second, because it’s so small, it’s eminently portable – perfect for pulling out for small jobs like hemming pants, sewing on a patch and so on. And third, as you might well have already figured, it’s The Bargain of the Century.

Yep, folks, The Mighty Midge originally sold for $98, and sold so well there’re only a few hundred left in the warehouse. And when they’re gone, The Mighty Midge II will go on sale. And it’s going to cost $150. That’s right, folks, this lot of Mighty Midges is the last!”

And the hustle keeps going on and on, with the added inducement that if you buy your MM now, they’ll throw in, at no extra cost, 45 spools of thread of all colors!

At some point Mme. K grabs the phone in one hand and her credit card in the other and calls.

… twice

A few days later, as promised, her MM arrives.

When she opens the box, she immediately notices two things about it. One, it’s even smaller than it seemed on TV, almost comically so. And two, the spools are far smaller than standard ones, so they’d have to be special-ordered. Beyond that, there seems to be hardly any thread on each spool.

Oh, well, she figures, what can you really expect for $28?

Well, there was one thing you should expect, namely that the thing works. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. I can’t remember the technical details — something about the tension on the bobbin or some-such. All I know is no matter what she does, she can’t get the needle to budge.

Thinking she’s doing something wrong, she packs up MM and takes it to Andrea, who she knows can figure out what’s wrong.

Andrea checks it out and within a minute or so understands the problem perfectly: The Mighty Midge should more properly be called The Trashmo Tiny. It’s piece of junk, and even if it worked, it wouldn’t work well … or for long.

As you might expect, Mme. K. is rip-snot furious. She’s furious at the infomercial hustler, she’s furious at that product, and she’s furious at herself for getting sucked in to this hustle.

She puts herself through a brutal self-interrogation:

How could she have believed that TV schmuck?

Why did she ever think anyone could sell a sewing machine, even a crappy miniature one, for $28?

And finally, who needs two sewing machines — especially when the one you have works perfectly? It’s like having two microwaves or two blenders or two lawn mowers, or two noses, for Pete’s sake!

Her tantrum passes; she calms down and regains her clarity. All right, so she got conned, but all’s not lost. She has a week to return MM for a full refund, which is exactly what she’s going to do. She goes home and packs up MM in the box it came in, tapes it up and affixes a new label.

The next day she’s in the post office as soon as it opens.

She puts the box on the counter, mumbling something about “a piece of crap.” Then she smiles to herself, feeling smug about the only good thing in this experience: They may have screwed her over once, but they’ll never be able to do it again.

That thought lasts only as long as it takes the guy at the counter to weigh the box and tally up the damages. And damages they were – both monetary and psychological.

In order that the Mighty Midge gonifs get their dreck back in time for her to get her refund, Mme. K has to send it via guaranteed-arrival shipping, which costs her a cool $43

It’s a cautionary tale and one we can all learn from.

The only question is, will we?