Marketplace brought in a former con artist to pull off some scams, and then had experts analyze why people fall for them. (CBC)

When you think of someone who's been scammed by a con artist, what image comes to mind?

Chances are, you pictured an elderly person, living alone. That does happen, but new research has found — when it comes to investment fraud — the biggest targets of scams aren't who you'd expect.

Doug Shadel has been investigating fraud for decades. He's written several books and studies on con men, and runs AARP — one of the most powerful lobby groups for people over 50 in the U.S.

According to his research, con men looking to make big bucks in investment fraud like to target men in their 50s: entrepreneurs who call the shots at work, and don't answer to anyone when it comes to making financial decisions.

Recently, Shadel interviewed some American men who thought they were investing in oil and gas.

"The average loss amount was $300,000," he told Marketplace. "And the customer base, when you look at the list of customers, it's like a who's who of American business: judges, bank presidents, not the typical victim that you would think of."

High-profile movers and shakers aren't the sort of victims who are likely to speak out about being scammed. In Canada, it's estimated that less than five per cent of all fraud is reported. The RCMP say people are too embarrassed to come forward, giving con artists cover to keep ripping people off. Investigators estimate that last year alone, Canadians lost up to $30 billion to fraud.

Looking for the right target

In Toronto, we met up with a fraudster who echoes Shadel's research. Back in the 1990s, he was involved in the so-called "Nigerian Scam." Investors were targeted, duped by forged documents, even flown to Nigeria and wooed by alleged political insiders and bankers. The hook was that the victims were paying for a slice of a bigger payoff with money supposedly funneled out of the country.

The con man told us, like Shadel's research, he had a specific target.

"A 50-year-old male, been in business 20 years, 25 years … has some reserve funds in his account, wants a better life, wants to buy a bigger boat, a bigger plane, a bigger property than his friend's — a greedy business person."

His operation was created in the days before the internet, so identifying the right person to scam was more time-consuming and painstaking, he said. But they were out there, mostly in Europe and in the United States.

The scammer spent time in jail for his crime and is trying to rebuild his life. So we are not identifying him. He claims his organization bilked investors to the tune of about $50 million. And he says it became easy to draw people in and take their money.

"You'd be surprised, somebody will just meet you on the phone and within a week they'll tell you their whole life story. You use that information to make a connection with them."

'I love it when people say they can't be conned.'—Simon Lovell, former con man

Another former con artist we talked to said he loved the bravado of people who think they can't be had. Simon Lovell, the author of How To Cheat At Everything, spent more than half his life running short and long cons.

Considered among the world's best card tricksters, Lovell took people for small amounts of cash in bar bets and cheated casinos out of thousands. He now advises police and casinos on how to catch con men and scammers.

"I love it when people say they can’t be conned,” Lovell told Marketplace, "because to me, they're already half way towards being conned."

Lovell said one of the essential characteristics of a con man is being cold-blooded.

"I often say I never saw people as people, I saw them as walking ATM machines."

You can't judge a book by its cover

Even if you're not a male in his 50s, there are ways you can be fooled.

New research has found that the expression "you can't judge a book by its cover" is highly applicable when it comes to con artists. At the University of British Columbia's Okanagan Campus in Kelowna, forensic psychologist Stephen Porter has been studying the facial features of scammers.

He's discovered there are features we instinctively find trustworthy: softly curved eyebrows, a rounded baby face, full lips. People who possess these features universally come across as more trustworthy — whether they are, or not. Not only that, our brains decide whether or not to trust someone in one-tenth of a second — making it difficult to step back from a potential scammer if we've already decided they're OK.

It can all add up to a deck that might seem stacked against you when it comes to protecting yourself.

But fraud experts we consulted have a few tips: don't be pressured to rush into any kind of deal (that's a tactic to get you to stop thinking rationally), don't be afraid to hang up the phone, close your door, or keep on walking when you get the sense you're being hood-winked (we're such polite Canadians!), and if you do fall for a scam, report it.

Knowledge is power, so the more we know about scams, the less likely we are to get fooled again.