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.

Comments

It's a foregone conclusion

[xrayspx]

"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.

Re:It's a foregone conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the joke.

Re:It's a foregone conclusion

[Arancaytar]

No fortune teller believes in their own powers any more than a stage magician does. To provide customers with a skillful illusion requires the awareness of building the illusion - the fortune teller has to cold-read their customer, provide vague hints and leading questions.

That said, a fortune teller doesn't have to be a fraud any more than a stage magician does; it can be a nice form of entertainment. The difference is that far less customers believe in stage illusions than in fortune telling, and fortune tellers - once they have stumbled across a gullible customer - will often proceed to fleece them for everything they own.

Re:It's a foregone conclusion

[Dexter Herbivore]

No fortune teller believes in their own powers...

You under estimate the power of self delusion.

Re:It's a foregone conclusion

[am 2k]

No fortune teller believes in their own powers any more than a stage magician does.

I actually know someone personally who does believe in her own future prediction power. How I can be sure? She makes financially obviously unsound decisions like selling her nearly-new car, etc. because of some calculations she did based on the current locations of some molten rocks in the sky. She actually has to run a special Win 3.1 program for that, because it's the only one which does the calculations she needs.

To provide customers with a skillful illusion requires the awareness of building the illusion - the fortune teller has to cold-read their customer, provide vague hints and leading questions.

Generally yes, but you can learn to do that unconsciously, to the point where you can do that successfully on yourself. You just have to really believe in it.

Re:It's a foregone conclusion

[WrongSizeGlass]

No fortune teller believes in their own powers...

You under estimate the power of self delusion.

If you're using Google, Facebook, etc as an information source it's a pretty clear indication that your real power is lying to your victims.

Re:It's a foregone conclusion

[houghi]

I actually know someone personally who does believe in her own future prediction power.

I know a whole industry that believes they can tell the future. How I can be sure? They makes financially obviously unsound decisions like buying/selling their stock, etc. because of some calculations they did based on an algorithm.
They actually has to run a special programs for that, because it's the only one which does the calculations they need.

Anyone really surprised by this?

[msgmonkey]

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.

Re:Anyone really surprised by this?

[Anonymous Coward]

You should always attribute your quotations. That's Steve Jobs, right?

Surprising how old the techniques are

[Grayhand]

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.

"... a scuba diver dressed as a monster ..."

[Anonymous Coward]

And they would have got away with it too, if it wasn't for those darn meddling kids!

Am I the only one who did a double take...

[Biff Stu]

after first thinking the article was about Romulan fortune tellers.

Steve are you there?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Yes...

[meglon]

... 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.

As opposed to the traditional fortune tellers?

[blind biker]

Every and all fortune teller is committing fraud - these were just higher-tech than the rest.

Re:superstition and religion

[Barsteward]

There us no need to separate Superstition and religion, they are the same thing.

Re:Romania ...

[Atti K.]

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.

Suckers are born every second

[Taco Cowboy]

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?

Re:Suckers are born every second

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well ... suckers are _still_ falling into the Nigerian money transfer scam, don't they?"

Not to mention talking snakes, virgin mothers and bearded men in the sky.

Re:Suckers are born every second

[Immerman]

To be fair, nobody actually has evidence *against* any of those (yeah, yeah, can't prove a negative etc.) and they're not an ongoing phenomena so can't really be tested at all. On the other hand psychics of all stripes have been fleecing suckers throughout history* and not one has ever been proven effective. Tip: when hiring a psychic be sure you ask them why they haven't yet claimed the million-dollar prize that's been waiting for years for the first person to demonstrate paranormal abilities that can survive a double-blind test.

*I would guess that the practice likely has it's roots with the tribal shaman throwing the bones to receive advice from the spirit world (or some variant thereof), which I think doesn't actually count as fleecing suckers but was rather a matter of the best-educated** person in the tribe using a certain amount of theatre to help his advice hold weight among the hotheads and short-sighted idiots. If you need evidence for the necessity of such a thing just look around today when we have a society built around scientific advances and yet the advice of scientists is largely ignored even when there's a near-unanimous consensus.

** Yes, educated. In addition to being a priest a shaman was quite often the tribe's doctor, historian, and all around holder of subtle knowledge. Sure there was a lot of superstition, but there was also a lot of factual knowledge which was hard-won over countless generations and could be preserved only in living memory.

Re:Romania ...

[itsme1234]

"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.

Re:Romania ...

[hvm2hvm]

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.

That's a bit narrow-minded, I think

[F69631]

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!"

Re:That's a bit narrow-minded, I think

[Jane Q. Public]

"It's almost therapeutic to completely suspend your disbelief every once in a while..."

True, and I completely agree with the general sentiment of what you say.

But when someone says it's real, they (not a joke) imply a warranty, and fraud charges are the frequent result.

If it is clearly stated that the service is "for entertainment purposes only", and no other claims are made, then it's a perfectly legitimate operation. It's the others that run afoul of our standards of business.

If it * IS * labeled "for entertainment only", then you can decide for yourself at what level you prefer to be entertained. Anything else, and that decision is distorted or diluted. But THEN, they can claim all the reality they want, and say later it's just part of the act, for entertainment purposes.

And anybody who is taken in by that pretty much deserves to be taken in by that. The world -- and laws -- are and should be geared toward reasonably normal and reasonably reasonable people. Anything else has always resulted in problems.

Re:superstition and religion

[Hognoxious]

Ridiculous.

I mean, you don't get a tax exemption for always putting your left shoe on first, do you?

Re:Romania ...

[Hognoxious]

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."

William "Canada Bill" Jones quote

[AliasMarlowe]

"It is immoral to let a sucker keep his money". Apparently, the Romanian scammer fortune-tellers agree.

Re:superstition and religion

[TheRaven64]

No they are not. A religion is an organisation based on superstition. Saying they are the same thing is like saying that corporations and capitalism are the same thing.

Re:My favourite part of the article...

[bruce_the_loon]

Any equipment of a better quality than what the government is using. In Romania, that's probably a satchel VHS camera with a stage microphone taped to the window.

the story sounds fishy

[unami]

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...

Re:My favourite part of the article...

[bruce_the_loon]

Dear Cris, sorry if I touched a nerve there, but that was a joke dude.