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Man Loses Millions In Bizarre Virus-Protection Scam
Orome1 writes "A US court has heard that a couple conned at least $6 million from the great-grandson of an oil industry tycoon after he brought his virus-infected computer in for repair. The couple are said to have tricked the composer into believing that, while investigating the virus, they had found evidence that his life was in danger – concocting a story that the virus had been tracked to a hard drive in Honduras, and that evidence had been found that the composer's life was in danger." The victim here, Roger Davidson, may have lost as much as $20 million, after being convinced that he was in danger from a grand conspiracy. Vickram Bedi and girlfriend Helga Invarsdottir convinced Davidson to pay $160,000 monthly, and possibly much more, for their help.
More and more I feel that people who are that paranoid and quick to believe conspiracies have an extrem form of narcism. They actually believe that the are important enough to worth that much effort. They think the world is out to get them in fact most the world doesn't even know they are here.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
> More of a stupid tax than a scam, really.
Which is, in and of itself, an interesting dichotomy. To what extent should the law protect those who don't protect themselves? That's an issue comes up in false advertising cases, in tort cases, in welfare issues, in tax policy, and generally throughout society, as soon as you decide there will be rule of law. Do we defend someone against malicious speech? Against the elements? Do we care if they could have diffused a situation with a kind word and instead chose to be belligerent and got punched in the nose? Do we feel differently if the nose hit belongs to a woman or a man or a child or a dog? A multimillionaire should be able to protect himself, but then, if it's inherited, he may have no nose for it. Or if he's only used to dealing with reputable companies, he may be hoodwinked.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
A friend of mine was renting a room in the house of a lady who lived down the street from me. She had been suckered into a Nigerian 419 scam, was convinced that the people she was communicating with were "Good Christians", and sent them about $30,000. When she took out a loan against her home, her daughters attempted to intervene with the courts to declare her incapable of managing her assets. She ended up losing the house and all her money, and my friend lost his room. She was a nice old lady whose mind was starting to go, and unfortunately was taken advantage of by some cold bastards. Don't mock too hard, it could be someone you love or even you one day.
More and more I feel that people who are that paranoid and quick to believe conspiracies have an extrem form of narcism. They actually believe that the are important enough to worth that much effort. They think the world is out to get them in fact most the world doesn't even know they are here.
There is one glaring problem with that viewpoint. It may have been true back when tracking/spying on a particular target would have required special effort and dedication of manpower. It is no longer true now that surveillance, monitoring, and database technology has advanced to the point where monitoring everyone all of the time is becoming increasingly feasible and cost-effective.
For one narrow example, consider police. It used to be that if they wanted to track someone's whereabouts, they had to assign police officers to stake out a suspect and follow him/her around. That's expensive. There are only so many police officers. Dedicating a number of them to constantly track a particular individual had to be justified. That individual had to be exceptional and extraordinary to justify this cost, because that manpower could be put to much better use otherwise. Now it's both cost-effective and (recently) legally justifiable to simply install GPS tracking devices on citizens' vehicles. Now a computer can automatically perform that tracking and all it costs is a piece of mass-produced electronics that only becomes cheaper over time.
Far from narcissists, I am coming to believe that those you call "paranoid" are realists. In a previous era they may have been quaint and paranoid but these days they're among the few willing to face the implications of a hard truth.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I once received a 419 letter that took on the form of a death threat. The writer claimed he was a hit man contracted to kills me, but for a price, he would tell me who my enemy was, and sell me a video of the contract being made. It told me not to contact the police, or he would act immediately. I could tell from the broken English that it was a 419, but I did call the police, hoping they could catch the scammer. They couldn't. I imagine that a senior or eccentric rich person would have taken this seriously, and done what they were told. Naturally, as soon as they paid, the scammer would say their enemy had upped the offer, and they need more money. This story reminds me of that letter I recieved.