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Man Accused of Selling Golf Ball Finders As Bomb Detectors

CNET reports that a British businessman named Jim McCormick is facing charges now for fraud; McCormick "charged 27,000 pounds (around $41,000) for devices that weren't quite what he said they were." That's putting it mildly; what he was selling as bomb detecting devices were actually souped-up (or souped-down, with non-functional circuitboards and other flim-flammery) golf-ball detectors. The Daily Mail has some enlightening pictures.

5 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Title not entirely accurate by TheMMaster · · Score: 5, Informative

    The man was selling dousing rods which were labeled as golfball finders as bombdetectors.

    They were equally successful at either task. They weren't golfball detectors any more than they were bomb detectors. The con was the dousing rod aspect of it, not the 'golf ball finder' stuff. The problem is people believing in magic, not a mislabeled golfbal detector.

    --
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    1. Re:Title not entirely accurate by colfer · · Score: 5, Informative

      Story broke in 2008 (Randi), NYT (2009), and then in 2010 the BBC did more work on it.
      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8471187.stm
      Here's the original WIkipedia page, from 2009, with the links to NYT and Randi:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ADE_651&oldid=323934632

    2. Re:Title not entirely accurate by arth1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Dousing is pouring liquid over something.
      The word you're looking for is dowsing.

  2. They are not even golf ball finder by aepervius · · Score: 5, Informative

    They are dowsing rod using the idea motor effect to fool you into thinking it detects anything. Dowsing rode do not work. When properly tested for say, finding metal and water, in double blind, the dowser never find stuff above chance. it is pure flim flam. So even as a 13$ gold ball finder , it is a scam.

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  3. Re:His mistake by Shimbo · · Score: 4, Informative

    The device referrred to in the Wikipedia article is the one we are talking about here.

    "In March of 2013, James McCormick went on trial in the UK on fraud charges".