No, this one is not about Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey’s extra-morphic experiences. It’s what it says it’s about: Con-tact. Or, Tactics for Conning. And the title was yet another tactic to con you into reading this article in the right con-text. And, incidentally, I’m sure you’ve guessed by now who it is that is being conned. Yup … the con-sumer, in America, the land driven by consumption.

In olden days, con-tacts were also known as scams or frauds when they were staged by individuals. But ever since corporations have taken over this business of establishing con-tacts, it’s become a whole new ball game.

There are, however, still some basic prerequisites to make good con-tacts. Chief among them is con-fidence. You have obviously realized by now that the word con itself stems from con-fidence trickster. If it is easy to trust and be taken in by the con-fidence that an individual inspired earlier, the logic now is that big corporations obviously enjoy the con-fidence and trust of lots of people, so they won’t con you.

Ah … but that is the very foundation of the first tactic of con-tact. Evoke con-fidence. Then establish con-tact. Then when you have the con-sumer in the palm of your hand, squeeze him or her dry. If you are still not clear about how this works, let me give you a simple example.

There is this con-sumer whose name I won’t take (but I will tell you that it is spelt NARAYAN DEVANATHAN, just like my name) in whom con-fidence is established about this travel agency, which may not exist except on the ethernet. (Again, I won’t take the name of the travel agency, I will just say that it’s URL is www.priceline.com.)

How does he trust this agency? Well, it says right there on the Web site that PRICELINE is the place “Where you name the price.” So he goes ahead and books a ticket for what he thinks is a steal. The itinerary that he asks for is not recorded anywhere except in the etherworld … I mean … the ethernet — the Internet — but he does not notice this in the joy of getting a super deal for round-trip tickets for the 4th of July weekend. And the transaction is credited to his card immediately. The catch is that the ticket is non-refundable, non-changeable, but NARAYAN doesn’t mind that since (he thinks) he’s getting the deal that he wanted for the dates that he wanted.

So what’s wrong so far? Nothing, yet. Three days later, he gets his itinerary by snail mail. And the itinerary is all wrong!! But can he do anything about it? Can’t he? Well, there’s no mailing address for www.priceline.com. There’s no registered office. There are two toll-free numbers to call up. One of them is perennially busy. The other thanks him “for his patience” and asks him to hold till the next available operator comes on line, for about 25 minutes. (Is this guy stupid, or what, to hold on for 25 minutes?!!) Also, the airline on which his ticket is (supposed to be) booked can’t do anything to change the booking.

What this con-sumer overlooked is typical of most of us. In this case, when the company said it’s the place “Where you name the price,” it also implied “And pay for it…”

Is this an isolated case? Of course not. Remember Microsoft and its operating systems? Remember Windows’98 (“It crashes a little less.”) Well, the way it has succeeded is by lulling the con-sumer into believing that he/she is always in con-trol. When, in reality, he/she is under con-trol, under Microsoft’s con-trol. So even when it crashes, the con-sumer shrugs it off with a “Well, it crashes. But hey… it crashes a little less than it used to.”)

You might also have noticed another thing that corporations do to keep you under con-trol. They “monitor your call for quality purposes.” This is just another version of “You have the right to remain silent about our quality. Anything you say might be used against you in court.” So even if you come out of your con-sumer state, and are irate, you usually can’t do much.

All these seem to be examples of con-tact in the age of electronic commerce. What about real life person-to-person con-tact? Let me give you another example. I have a Finnish friend from Helsinki who has a complexion clear enough to give crystal a complex. On one occasion when she’d gone to a doctor to get a sprained thumb or something examined, the doctor took one look at her face (her face!) and said, “You have acne. Do you want to take a six-week treatment for it? I can start you off right away.”

It was her presence of mind, as well as the fact that she was not American, that helped my friend not fall for this attempted con-tact. But her tact also prevented her from telling the doctor exactly what she thought of his diagnosis.

One last aspect about con-tacts. You can see that con-tacts have been completely taken over by large organizations from individuals by the importance attributed by almost everybody to high level con-tacts. What this means is the bigger your con-nections, the bigger is the con you can pull off. Which is why you see the biggest scams happening at the highest levels, in politics, in business, in sports, everywhere. So every time you hear some bigshot saying “Con-gratulations!” to somebody, you can be sure a big con has been pulled off somewhere.

Coming back to the original theme of “Contact” (the movie, not this article), you’ll notice how movies of this genre usually show aliens making con-tact with people at the top level, who have an established reputation for making con-tacts themselves.

Which brings me to the con-cluding part of this piece. If ever you see a corporation or person saying “For more details, con-tact…” make sure you stay as far away from them as possible.

Narayan Devanathan is a graduate student in journalism and mass communication from Hyderbad, India.