As opposed to that person who was actually psychic and just got paid for their work.
A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic
61–70 of 89 posts
Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?"
> They paid for a psychic reading And they got one. > and from someone who they thought was a psychic And that person provided one. How he procured it should be of no consequence.
> How he procured it should be of no consequence
The procurement was part of the agreed-upon conditions of the sale, so it is.
Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic
#63Is 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?
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Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic
#64A lot of these comments are jumping to victim-blaming, but the headline doesn't really describe the fraud. The article says the fraud they were prosecuted for wasn't even for the "psychic" services. The fraudster took a famous psychic's likeness and purported to be selling interactions with her, when in fact the letters were being destroyed and the responses were mass produced copy. Obviously "psychics" aren't real,…
One can read the article and read the prosecution's argument and still disagree with it. I do. In the end you're buying something that doesn't exist. If you want to believe it exists that's fine. Complaining that you bought magic and someone sold you fake magic though? C'mon now. The fake predictions were just as real as the real ones would be.
That’s the thing though, what people believe they’re getting and the intent of the purveyor makes all the difference. For example, if you’re an atheist, then all of religion would amount to so much mumbo jumbo to you, but that doesn’t mean all religious organizations are free to commit fraud of any kind without consequence.
Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They paid for a psychic reading And they got one. > and from someone who they thought was a psychic And that person provided one. How he procured it should be of no consequence.
> How he procured it should be of no consequence The procurement was part of the agreed-upon conditions of the sale, so it is.
Where were those conditions "agreed upon"? Who signed that contract?
Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah but psychic readings are personal comissions, not mass marketable! I ordered a cat scratcher. Cat scratchers are perfectly commodity things.. but mine wasn't. I ordered a handmade one. What I got shipped was a repurchase from Wayfair. I sent a single picture of the box and got a full refund. Yes, I got a cat scratcher but the handmade part was a material term of the deal. Paying someone to do a psychic reading is…
Nobody has the ability to give you a psychic reading because psychic readings don't exist. I'm glad you brought up the paragraph of text because are literally buying a fictional paragraph. It can say anything and will still be a psychic reading. I'm struggling to understand how you can equate something that isn't real and something that's tangible.
Hired into a place that had a crazy active astrology slack channel. Those people would believe anything as long as it wasn’t traditional mainstream.
Of course they also told me how upset they were to hire a white man, something I wish they had mentioned Before hiring. so that kind of set the tone.
Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic
#67A lot of these comments are jumping to victim-blaming, but the headline doesn't really describe the fraud. The article says the fraud they were prosecuted for wasn't even for the "psychic" services. The fraudster took a famous psychic's likeness and purported to be selling interactions with her, when in fact the letters were being destroyed and the responses were mass produced copy. Obviously "psychics" aren't real,…
One can read the article and read the prosecution's argument and still disagree with it. I do. In the end you're buying something that doesn't exist. If you want to believe it exists that's fine. Complaining that you bought magic and someone sold you fake magic though? C'mon now. The fake predictions were just as real as the real ones would be.
How does this compare to someone selling you a car that doesn't exist? It's criminal, and very similar if you distance your beliefs around magic from it.
Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic
#68The mind-blowing thing to me, besides the scam is that there is a $200M market out there for the actual psychic to exploit legitimately, that could be entirely automated by AI.
Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Ah but psychic readings are personal comissions, not mass marketable! I ordered a cat scratcher. Cat scratchers are perfectly commodity things.. but mine wasn't. I ordered a handmade one. What I got shipped was a repurchase from Wayfair. I sent a single picture of the box and got a full refund. Yes, I got a cat scratcher but the handmade part was a material term of the deal. Paying someone to do a psychic reading is…
Not sure if using cat scratcher as fictional example or actually ordered a handmade cat scratcher...
Re: A copywriter swindled victims out of $200M by pretending to be a psychic
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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If someone sells a good or service, knowing they will fail to deliver, they're committing fraud. Whether one believes in prayer or not should not apply in the judgment.