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How Romanian Fortune Tellers Used Google To Fleece Victims

Posted by timothy on from the hey-dad-take-this-as-a-free-lesson dept.

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.

9 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. It's a foregone conclusion by xrayspx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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
    1. Re:It's a foregone conclusion by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No fortune teller believes in their own powers...

      You under estimate the power of self delusion.

    2. Re:It's a foregone conclusion by am+2k · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

  2. Surprising how old the techniques are by Grayhand · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. "... a scuba diver dressed as a monster ..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  4. Re:superstition and religion by Barsteward · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    --
    "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
  5. That's a bit narrow-minded, I think by F69631 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!"

  6. Re:superstition and religion by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

    Ridiculous.

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

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  7. Re:Suckers are born every second by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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.