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How Romanian Fortune Tellers Used Google To Fleece Victims
Hentes writes "The internet has made many things easier, but unfortunately this also includes crime: it seems that nowadays not even people wanting to know their future are safe from fraud. Two fortune tellers are being investigated, after the Romanian police uncovered that they have utilized some extraordinary help in their clairvoyant acts. The pair used information collected from internet search and social networks to gain the trust of their customers, claiming that they could see their personal data through their crystal ball. In some cases, they also used high-tech surveillance techniques such as hidden cameras and phone tapping. But they didn't stop at merely spying on their victims: their most bizarre case involved a scuba diver dressed as a monster." Nice to know that internet-based fraud isn't limited to motivational speakers with real-estate seminars and other get-rich-quick flim-flam.
"it seems that nowadays not even people wanting to know their future are safe from fraud"
If you pay someone money and expect them to tell your future, you will never be safe from fraud. In fact, as your palm reading crystal adviser, I sense...fraud...in your future.
I like music
After finding out there are people buying spell casting services overy ebay in their thousands this is not surprising at all. A fool and his/her money is quickly seperated.
Really it's just an update of what has been going on since at least the mid 1800s. Back then they would question friends and relatives and check newspapers and birth records. Even the diver isn't all that different from having some one dress up as a ghost or having a veil on a string dance around. People believe even lame gags because they want to believe. The internet like with most things just makes it quicker and easier.
And they would have got away with it too, if it wasn't for those darn meddling kids!
Superstition and religion will always find a platform. Don't get "the Internet" involved in this please. If people want to believe something, it's their right and if they want to pay money to others to tell them what to believe, it's their right too. If some person or group is able to make a career out of that, fine. As long as they keep it private and don't change the law over it, or start wars, I don't see a problem with that.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
after first thinking the article was about Romulan fortune tellers.
They used Japanese ATMs
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Olga sits at her desk with her clients holding hand in a circle around her Ipad ...the candle flickers....One of the clients desperately wants to speak to Steve about why suddenly his Mac Book Pro is vulnerable to the "curse of the Open Windows"
Olga says she senses an evil presence in the room and that Steve is telling her that there is something very wrong with her clients Mac Book Pro and that it will only be free from evil when he removes boot camp and returns to the pure essence of Apple!
Olga takes her 200 dollar malware removal fee, 20% of which is paid to Symantec for setting her up in business.
I see many scenes like this happening to Mac users in the future.
... because the fortune teller trade has always before been a bastion of honesty and integrity, and has never been the butt of scurrilous rumors of fraud.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Every and all fortune teller is committing fraud - these were just higher-tech than the rest.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
but most people are just as stupid as they were before the internet.
I mean, palmistry crystal ball and stuff related are at best "entertainment" (*snort*) at worst downright fraud. No, let me correct that, they are simply most of the time fraud, and rarely used as entertainment. They are usually a combo of cold and hot reading.
Yes dumbass, we have Internet. It's dirt cheap and very fast. I pay less than 10 euros for an FTTB connection which goes up to 100 Mbps. At least we are good at something.
.sig: No such file or directory
Ever since the dawn of time there have been suckers
And that's the only reason why con artists thrive all through the millennia
The Net is a tool, use by everyone, including the con artists - and the suckers?
Well ... suckers are _still_ falling into the Nigerian money transfer scam, don't they?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"Borat" wasn't a documentary, if you can't make the difference please don't watch "Zombie Apocalypse" or anything similar. For your own good.
I know I'm only feeding the troll but why not try a wikipedia search for Romania first?
Also, it pains me that they call those fortune tellers Romanian since they're actually gypsies. This is a huge problem for us, the gypsies go in other countries, pull shit like this and worse (stealing, beating people up) and then they say they're Romanian. Everyone thinks Romania is a gypsy country or something.
ics
I'm an engineer and been atheist my whole life, so I don't believe in horoscopes/crystals/palm reading/etc... However, I've found that I immensely enjoy occasional tarot sessions. I don't believe any of that outside those sessions but every once in a while, it's nice to meet someone more spiritual than I am, light a few candles, smoke a bit of tobacco from a bong, engage in the whole tarot ritual (sliding fingers on the deck, etc.), have her read the cards for me and then reflect on how to interpret that all based on my history and expectations for the future.
It's almost therapeutic to completely suspend your disbelief every once in a while and get in touch with the spiritual side (I think that there is a certain mental state that every human - no matter how skeptic, etc. - can achieve if they want to... and it's pretty pleasant, really). As long as you keep it at that and don't ever start to think that you could actually make important decisions based on all that, it's pretty much the most harmless source of enjoyment that there is.
So, if people want that and what they get is that someone wiretaps their phones, installs hidden cameras to their apartment, etc... it's not okay to say "Well, what did they expect? Of course they're going to get scammed!"
"As well as fraud the pair are also facing charges under the National Security Act for using illegal professional surveillance equipment," What is professional surveillance equipment?
Oddly enough this only happens if you make them use bing search on a page.
You might not know this, but a common comedic technique is to base things pretty closely on the truth.
See: "Royle Family", "The Office" and (allegedly) "Yes, [Prime] Minister."
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...and thought exactly the same thing.
"Romulans. They're so predictably treacherous!"
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
How Jewish Fortune Tellers Used Wall Street To Fleece WASPs
Madoff, Goldman, Sachs, et cetera...
The point is, why mention the nationality? Isn't it bad as it is?
Promises of riches occur in the Wall Street too, with about as little chance of success in the hand of petty merchants like Madoff.
Is this even new?
When I tell some, they have to watch their PC better, against trojans and virusses, I get the reaction: "who cares? it's only data!" or "I don't got anything to hide" or "There is not that much important on my PC"; While it's THEIR privacy which is at stake and THEIR pc is getting (ab)used to breach the privacy/security of others.
Lots of people just don't care anymore about stuff which they don't understand; as long "as it works" it's allright for them ..
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
"It is immoral to let a sucker keep his money". Apparently, the Romanian scammer fortune-tellers agree.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
The Sakawa Boys Will Tear Them Up!
Sakawa Boys Do this ground work all the time, not much different than "Romance scam."
Sakawa is religion, practitioners work hard, it's amazing unbelievable the article never mentioned Sakawa.
Sakawa Boys even have Music CD's out! Romainian Fortune Tellers are pussies in comparison, getting caught, being prosecuted Bla.. fuck all that..
Slashdot should go to Ghana get us some updated juju and snakes.
http://www.vice.com/motherboard/mbd-vbs-the-sakawa-boys
And to add insult to injury they are calling themselves Rroma instead of Gypsies, because they claim that the word Gypsy is demeaning and not politically correct.
The irony is that, in the Romanian language the word Gypsy ("tigan") is purely descriptive of their ethnicity (same as words like German, French or Romanian), but in time began to have a bad connotation because of the way Gypsies behaved (all sort of cons, small time crime, corruption etc). So came a time when they decided to rebrand themselves.
According to Wikipedia, "rom" means "man" in their language, while the name Romania comes from "Rome" (a 19th century reference to the fact that the Romanian people is Latin). Gypsies from Romania were quick to capitalize on this coincidence recommending themselves as Romanians when it suited them, which became a problem for legitimate Romanian citizens traveling abroad in many Western states for purposes other than begging, stealing, coning and raping.
The big problem is that their traditional culture is very strong and they can't be educated (eduction is free and mandatory in Romania, still they refuse it) and integrated into the Romanian and European societies. I think a people is beyond hope when they cripple their own children to earn more money from begging and when they throw their their children in front of more expensive cars to blackmail the drivers. Another problem is that they multiply like rabbits - there's no concept of birth control whatsoever and the state supports the kids and the mothers with some ridiculously small subventions (but when your main source of income is stealing copper wires and railroad tracks, I suppose every bit counts).
"The internet has made many things easier, but unfortunately this also includes crime"
Stupidest introduction statement ever.
While we're at it, cars are useful unfortunately they also cause accidents and chocolate bars are delicious but they also make you fat.
Even if the pretended documentary would be close to the truth for the sake of whatever technique this still wouldn't say anything about Romania; you can gather as much if you knew at least the full title of the movie, which is "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan".
Defrauding mentally ill or retarded people is still fraud.
HAND.
Also, it pains me that they call those fortune tellers Romanian since they're actually gypsies. This is a huge problem for us, the gypsies go in other countries, pull shit like this and worse (stealing, beating people up) and then they say they're Romanian.
They come here in the summers, panhandling. Actually, what they say is they are persecuted by the majority romanians.
Everyone thinks Romania is a gypsy country or something.
Well, you seem to have a fairly large minority of them.
although i live in austria, i've never heard of the "austrian times" (and it's really not that big a country). also, the story lacks information about where this has happened (except that the fortune tellers are romanian), and i would't be the least bit surprised if the pictures from the two women were random stock photos. i'd take this story with at least a grain of salt...
And I don't recall the average Romulan ever being quite this sneaky. I'm betting she's Tal Shiar.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Romania couldn't be a gypsy country. I swear they ALL live here in the midwest U.S. There are damn near as many stinking palm readers as bars.Not really, but there are many. The other day in the grocery store a bunch walk in and shop their carts full, then just start pushing them out to a Chev.Suburban. One of them is "trying " to keep the manager busy inside, but believe me he NOTICED! Anyway they piled in the truck and fled just before the local donut pigs could get around to it.Scamming,stealing,self entitled stinking gypsies. Probably the only "race" Hitler was right about.
If we are clever and lucky, we can "mistakenly" deport them will all the illegal Mexicans once legislation has a sudden outbreak of common sense.
At least one, that I know of, was using the internet before most people knew there was an "internet."
If they have a Romanian passport, they are Romanian.
If they are descendent from people who lived in Romania, then many feel it is OK to call them Romanian.
The first I can agree with. The second not so much. The we all would be Etheopians. Jay Leno is not Italian. He is American.
And don't even get me started on the racial issue. Why must somebody who has 3 grand parents from Sweden (all of them blonde and blue eyed) be called an African American?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Just because most of your telecommunication infrastructure was built way after you got rid of the asshat.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You mean it wasn't ok to shoot my neighbor when he asked whether the fuck I have some brain in that skull of mine?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Dude, forget it. Apparently the US people were told to believe that pretty much all of Europe was left in the middle ages and only they had some semblance of electricity.
No kidding, at my first trip over I was asked whether I know how to operate a toaster. And that was AFTER they contacted me via internet and email...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Crime, Fraud, Humor
:)
I did mention their ethnicity but it was apparently censored from the final post. Strange, as it's also in the article, and the pictures in it. Still, the first thing you notice upon entering Romania is that there are gipsies everywhere, and not even the somewhat settled ones but wandering nomadic tribes, beggar mafias, child labour etc. Many are sick, and from what I could tell there are many that starve. It can be argued whose fault it is, but from the eye of an outsider it certainly gives the place a certain Balcanic feel.
By the same logic the Romans could say that you have insulted them. This is just a form of poetic justice.
You see a lot of gypsies when you enter the country because gypsies are beggars mostly. They live in train stations, bus stations, markets, etc. because that's where they can find large numbers of people to beg/steal from.
ics
This seems to be the Euro version of Weekly World News, considering the reporting quality (or lack of) and other dubious stories: How long until someone posts this fake story from the site to Slashdot?
You don't really need Google for this though. Plenty of suckers out there are quite happy to believe a cold reading.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
how come smart ass?
Can we require "for entertainment only" to be inscribed on a plaque over every church entrance?
In all seriousness though, I think there may well be something to be said for good priests/psychics/astrologers/etc. I would say one of the marks of a really good practitioner, of the sort that can get repeat customers for years or decades on end, is the ability to consistently give good advice. That's a rare skill that modern society doesn't really give recognition to. One could even argue that the ability to "sex up" the advice with magical trappings is almost necessary to give it the weight to be followed - otherwise it's just some person giving you advice, and we all know so many people that give give bad or just random advice that it can be hard to actually listen to the good kind.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Doesn't corruption require the wielding of official power for personal gain? My understanding is that, as a rule at least, Gypsies prefer to live on the fringes of society, which would make corruption rather difficult. Okay, it could exist within their internal power structures (and I'd be surprised if is didn't, why should they be the only ones without it?), but that wouldn't seem like something that would count against them in the eyes of outsiders.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
When in Romania, do as the Romanians do...
http://romania-on-line.net/halloffame/
http://www.romaniatourism.com/main-attractions.html
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Why is it illegal to search clients' public websites via a spherical monitor? I don't get it.
Table-ized A.I.
...if it weren't for those pesky kids in the stoner van.
"their most bizarre case involved a scuba diver dressed as a monster."
You forgot the essential: the way of addressing this overly prolific minority was imposed by the European Union to ensure that they don't get offended by being called their true name (and make sure that the association Romanian/Gypsy gets statutory if not intentional). Never mind though, I'm just a racist prick that will persist on calling them as they should.
"But they didn't stop at merely spying on their victims: their most bizarre case involved a scuba diver dressed as a monster.""
I guess this plot was revealed by "those meddling kids".
Plot I mean.
Borat is a Gypsy Hunter, hire him!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry
Casteism
It's almost therapeutic to completely suspend your disbelief every once in a while and get in touch with the spiritual side (I think that there is a certain mental state that every human - no matter how skeptic, etc. - can achieve if they want to... and it's pretty pleasant, really).
Of course it's pleasant. Why do you think the majority of people are religious? Being an atheist is HARD because you can't abdicate responsibility to the man in the sky/tarot cards/etc. Not saying that you believe, but now you see how seductive it can be...
Opiate of the masses, indeed.
As long as you keep it at that and don't ever start to think that you could actually make important decisions based on all that, it's pretty much the most harmless source of enjoyment that there is.
Casinos are always packed to the gills with people. Do you *really* think they all see it as nothing more than entertainment and fully expect to lose all the money they put on the table?
So yes, if you have the right mindset, it's totally harmless. The issue is that the majority of humanity does NOT have the right mindset.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Worse than that, everyone thinks all gypsies are Romanian! Poor gypsies... :)
With the first link, the chain is forged.
So it's all right to flat out pretend that you can see the future, but if you do research first, it's fraud?
The right to offend is central to the right to free speech.
Touche...
ics
Except that, a couple of millenia ago, when the Roman empire invaded these places and wiped the floor with the local Thracians, a lot of Romans settled here - so many in fact, that the old Thracian language was lost forever save for a few words. People in these parts were Romans speaking latin.
Having said that, I personally think the country's name is silly, but they needed a name for the two united Romanian countries in the mid 19th century (Moldavia and Valahia). I think it was also a statement against the Ottoman and the Russian empires. Something like - even if you surround and oppress us, fuck you, we are not like you, we'll never be and in fact we're better than you because we were Romans once.