I saw this story on the news tonight, and I was both amazed and fascinated.
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
Let me be sure I have this straight:
This guy is an utter moron for believing in this crap.
He gets “scammed” and calls the police.
The police buy into this and launch an investigation! And on top of that, now we have the media playing it up as though we’re supposed to feel sympathy for this idiot?
Of course he got scammed! That’s what psychics do! He invited this upon himself, and now he’s whining to the authorities? Please. I fail to see why this psychic should be in any kind of trouble.
Oh, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree. Anyone who is retarded enough to fall for this shit - and willingly spend their money on it - deserves whatever misfortune is heaped upon them. And they should get absolutely no sympathy.
While I agree with you, I’d also say that the psychic doesn’t deserve to keep the money either.
Druella is a moron, Stevens is scum, and her lawyer needs to be shot. At best, his client is only abusing the religious advisor/devotee relationship, which means Druella has the option of undoing the contract and getting all his stuff back.
While this guy is an idiot, that doesn’t mean the psychic should be free. They are scamming folks who are vulnerable and while my sympathy is limited, it is not non-existent. Psychics can be very convincing, and our media has done a lot to convince the regular folks they are legitimate.
So according to the OP’s logic, anyone who runs a scam should not be investigated or liable to prosecution because their victim was an idiot for falling for their scam. And where do you draw the line on this?
This. I understand what it’s like to be in so much emotional pain that you’re willing to try anything that offers you comfort. I mean, yeah, the victim’s obviously got a defective bullshit-o-meter, but the real scum bag here is the psychic.
Would this then include any religion that accepts donations/tithes/gifts/whatever from their gullible clientel? I’d have to think so, and be all in favor of it.
I was thinking more in terms of all the “get rich quick” and investment schemes that fall under the “if it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t” type of scam. But I could see someone trying to claim that they were scammed by promises of being healed if they sent Reverend Jimmy Ray Bob a “donation” of $1000. And come to think of it, there are a lot of stories about elderly people who end up bankrupt because they’ve sent all their savings to TV evangelists.
While i think the psychic in the OP’s story is scum, and does deserve to be arrested, i think the story raises an interesting question.
The psychic offered to rid the guy of his negative energy.
If we assume for a moment that there is such a thing as “negative energy,” and that only certain people have the psychic abilities or skills necessary to detect and eliminate it, then how can we be certain that the psychic is a scam at all?
If, on the other hand, we believe that the whole notion of psychic ability is a load of bullshit (and this is, in fact, what i believe), then why are ANY psychics allowed to even practice at all? If psychic ability is non-existent, then ANY claim to psychic ability which seeks to extract money in exchange for that ability should be considered fraud.
Basically, if society accepts, on some level, that psychics have valid abilities, and that there is a genuine demand for them, then who gets to decide which psychics are fakes, and which psychics are genuine? After all, it’s not only poor saps confused about their gender and sexuality that use psychics. Hell, police departments in this country have used them.
every “psychic” i’ve ever seen has had a placard stating that their services are for “entertainment purposes only” somewhere in their “office”. If they sucker you into the “negative energies” BS then your doing it to entertain your fantasies of wtf ever your into. IF the one in this case was transparent like that, the “victim” definitely deserves what he got.
of course from my standpoint… if the pursuit of money is the root of all evil, removing 150grand from his accounts does technically do what the psychic claimed.
It’s one thing to be scammed by, say, an investment adviser; quite another to be “scammed” by a psychic. The former provides a legitimate service that is widely used; the latter is fraudulent by its very nature. If you trust your finances to an investment adviser and she bilks you out of said money, you are most definitely a victim, and the adviser deserves prison time. If you freely give your money to a psychic expecting her to remove “negative energy” or some such nonsense, you’re an idiot; you’re only a “victim” of your own stupidity and lack of common sense. Is the psychic is a worthless piece of shit? Yes. Did she do anything wrong? Morally, most definitely; legally, I don’t think so.
I’ve read a couple of theories about this. First, that it’s a code word for “We don’t want to compromise our source, so we’ll pretend we grabbed our intel out of the fucking ether.” Second, that letting the public think that the police accept the assistance of psychics provides a convenient outlet for any criminal too stupid to resist gloating about their crimes.
You know that, I know that, most of the dope knows that. But many folks do not know that.
I’m sorry but thanks to poor media representation we have a lot of people who think that psychics are real. We don’t teach critical thinking in schools and this makes for fertile grounds for scams. That doesn’t mean we grump ‘caveat emptor’ and let the psychic get away with it.
There is something called ‘Theft by deception’ you know.
As someone else pointed out upthread, every psychic ad I’ve seen on TV has had a disclaimer that their services are “for entertainment only.” I’ve only seen a few psychic places of business IRL, but the ones that I have seen have also had a sign displayed to that effect. I fail to see where deception plays any role in this; were I on a jury, I’d consider the knowledge that psychics are BS to be a reasonable expectation of a person.
Provided that the psychic is catering to the lowest common denominator and pointing out that services are “for entertainment only,” and will freely advise the client that there are no refunds, I see nothing wrong with this being an expensive lesson for Druella.
And we all know how a tiny disclaimer absolves you of all legal issues.
Really? With John Edward having a TV show claiming to talk to the dead, with Sylvia Brown on every week on Montel Williams when he had a show? With TV shows constantly bombarding us with the idea that skeptics are wrong and that the paranormal is part of our everyday life?
Gosh! I never the Straight Dope’s fight against ignorance had been so successful!
I’m sorry, but this is sickening to me. I’ve accused the SDMB of being a bunch of bleeding hearts but when it comes to ‘dey shoulda known what I know’ suddenly everyone is a ‘fuck you’ libertarian.
For the record, there is a psychic down the street from me. I had a look in the window and it took me several minutes to spot the tiny ‘For Entertainment Purposes’ which was about 1/10th the size of the “open/closed” sign and maybe 1/20th the size of the “CRYSTAL HEALING” sign.
In many situations, no. In this one, it’s enough to convince me, as a juror, that the complainant should’ve known what he was getting into.
TV shows bombard us with many ideas, some of them even more ridiculous than psychic ability. That doesn’t mean we believe them outright.
As to John Edwards and Sylvia Brown, I’d be curious to know just how many watch these types of shows because they actually believe in them versus how many watch them for purely entertainment value, versus how many people don’t even bother watching them because they know it’s outright BS. Sometimes I watch Ghost Hunters, but that doesn’t mean I believe in ghosts.
It’s not just “knowing what I know,” it’s about reasonable expectations of an average person. Considering that I’ve never seen a line forming down a street from a psychic’s shop, ISTM that most people wouldn’t consider such a thing a worthwhile use of time.
Really? I suppose that the little ‘FDA has not confirmed these findings’ disclaimer on medications would absolve anyone of selling Peach Pit cures
The fact that this person is hardly unique in being scammed by psychics - and the fact that psychics even exist says otherwise.
A percentage -a significant percentage, believe they are real.
Sylvia Brown has built a church based on her ‘psychic powers’ and has sold a lot of books full of mostly pap. Yet they sell. And her followers are outright viscous in defending her - especially from the author of that website.
An average person may not be in the same boat as a person who is hitting an emotional bottom. An average person would probably actually think there are fake psychics out there, but an average person could easily be swayed otherwise with a couple of cold-reading sessions.
And yet they stay in business.
:rolleyes: Yeah. I was looking for it. It was be easy to have overlooked it. Hardly a ringing disclaimer.
So, Mr. Miskatonic, we’re supposed to coddle these idiots, then? When someone who has been paying a psychic for their “services” realizes it’s all a load of hooey, the psychic should be brought up on charges and the moron should get all their money back?
How about a fool that buys into a MLM scheme? After investing thousands of dollars, when the program fails to make the fool a millionaire, should he go crying to the media and expect to get all of his money back?
I don’t consider it to be a scam if you’re knowingly dumping your money into something advertised as having purely entertainment value.
Then let them. Christians have built a church based on an omniscient God who presents no proof whatsoever, and their followers are outright viscous in defending them. Many would argue that religions are organizations built to defraud. Hell, I’d consider a church collection plate to be more of a fraud than what happened here – it’s likely that this psychic also advertises her services to be “for entertainment only.”
Honestly, whether or not psychic powers are real isn’t the issue; a service was offered that is advertised as having purely entertainment value, and someone paid money for that service – which has no verifiable measurement. On the flip side, I’m sure you can find numerous believers who pour their money into psychics but would balk at the notion that they’d be defrauded. It seems that this guy has issues with the quality of service he received, but until he can enumerate his issues in a way that suggests that the psychic hasn’t lived up to her side of the deal, it’s difficult to consider him defrauded. If I’m disappointed with a 2 hour movie, I don’t ask the theater to refund my ticket.
Do you consider people who attend magic shows expecting to see real magic to be “victims of fraud”?
Yes. The psychic is pulling a con and all the ‘For Entertainment Purposes’ signs don’t change that.
Depends on what they got, how they were taken advantage of, and other circumstances. Not all MLMs are the same, whereas most psychics asking for quantities of money usually are.