“Few may have been deceived the first time, but it appears that the same trick is still being used over and over again.”
“It was too good to be true, and I desperately prayed that it wasn't just someone playing a trick on me.”
“We do our usual trick of ignoring him completely, and he returns the favor by declining even to acknowledge our existence.”
trickster
(mythology, literature) Any of numerous figures featuring in various mythologies and folk traditions, who use guile and secret knowledge to challenge authority and play tricks and pranks on others; any similar figure in literature.