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A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic

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Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic

#21

Post by mromanuk »

ceejayoz wrote: post #8
WheatMillington wrote: post #7

Is this really a swindle if your "victims" are willing participants? Every purported psychic is "pretending" even if they don't realise. My sister in law makes good money giving readings over zoom. She genuinely believes in this nonsense, as do her customers. Is there a practical difference though, whether she believes it or not?

The victims paid for personal readings from a specific person, and got mass-produced ones from someone else instead. Psychics are bullshit, but that's an extra level of fraud on top, and far more actionable by law enforcement.

Si if he did a personal reading with a “real psychic” it wouldn’t be fraud?

Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic

#22

Post by mplewis »

mromanuk wrote: post #21
ceejayoz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The victims paid for personal readings from a specific person, and got mass-produced ones from someone else instead. Psychics are bullshit, but that's an extra level of fraud on top, and far more actionable by law enforcement.

Si if he did a personal reading with a “real psychic” it wouldn’t be fraud?

That's correct.

Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic

#23

Post by hutzlibu »

WheatMillington wrote: post #20
hutzlibu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If both believe in it and fulfil their bargain, it is not fraud. Fraud requires intention of missleading. Also, what most customers want, is emotional comfort. And whatever we think of it, it seems to work for them. Even though personally, I'll go with south parks take on it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sH0dZDnD_GI

Does it work for them "less" if the purported psychic doesn't believe?

If they find out, definitely. And if they don't find out, I would think yes, as they subconsciously probably notice some things are off with the intention of the "psychic".

Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic

#24

Post by renewiltord »

What's fascinating to me about this whole thing is that the original woman used a couple of hits to cultivate an audience and then sold that image onwards. She's like a modern day influencer/creator/brand marketer. Fascinating.

It would be quite wild if people were to take present day money techniques with modern LLMs and create this thing wildly. After all, if you cast a wide enough net you'll get some people who will believe!

Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic

#25

Post by somehowlinux »

recursivecaveat wrote: post #15
ceejayoz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The victims paid for personal readings from a specific person, and got mass-produced ones from someone else instead. Psychics are bullshit, but that's an extra level of fraud on top, and far more actionable by law enforcement.

I'm reminded of Robert Tilton, who was exposed for depositing/trashing prayer requests/donations without actually praying over them. Sadly it seems like he largely escaped intact. I suspect being a grifter is a very strong risk factor for being too lazy to grift 'correctly', no matter how easy it would be.

I wonder the same sometimes but then think it might be due to survivorship bias that I think as much.

Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic

#26

Post by pessimizer »

mjtechguy wrote: post #12

How is this different from a religion or a church. Seems like BS charges to me.

If you pay your religion for a religious service, and they fail to do it, you should sue. If you book a wedding at a church, they can't just call off the wedding and not give your money back.

If your church turns out not to even be a church, but a copywriting scam, and you donated to it, you should sue.

Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic

#27

Post by dmonitor »

cosmotic wrote: post #11
ceejayoz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The victims paid for personal readings from a specific person, and got mass-produced ones from someone else instead. Psychics are bullshit, but that's an extra level of fraud on top, and far more actionable by law enforcement.

Sounds like shuffling a deck of cards and then selecting cards from the deck at random. It's redundant. Fraudulent fraud gets collapsed into just fraud, which is what the customer wanted from the start.

not really. a “psychic reading” may not be supernatural, but it is still advice from a person. in this case they advertised advice from a specific person, but sold advice from a different person.

Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic

#28

Post by crazygringo »

pessimizer wrote: post #16
cosmotic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like shuffling a deck of cards and then selecting cards from the deck at random. It's redundant. Fraudulent fraud gets collapsed into just fraud, which is what the customer wanted from the start.

They paid for a psychic reading, and from someone who they thought was a psychic. They weren't paying for psychic powers to be real. If I buy a book on psychic readings, is it alright for them not to send it to me because psychic readings aren't real? Is it "redundant?"

It's more like you ordered a book on Amazon, but it was shipped from Wal-Mart instead.

You still got your book. These people got their psychic readings. Just from a different source.

Can you prove that the different source was of lower quality, for something that you can't prove quality for in the first place?

It reminds me of famous artists where a lot of their work was done by assistants.

Should I be able to sue a celebrity when their autobiography was ghostwritten but that wasn't publicly disclosed? Or when their tweet is written by a publicist? We seem to have decided the answer to that is no.

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