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Maria Duval Scam
The Maria Duval Scam is one of the most successful mail scams in history, having defrauded millions of people out of at least $200 million over twenty years. Targeting sick and elderly people through a combination of personalized letters and personal information databases, it has been shut down in the United States in 2016, but is still ongoing in many countries. History, scope and method The scam originates from a purported psychic of Italian origin named Maria Carolina Gamba, using "Maria Duval" as her trade name. Gamba gave psychic consultations in the South of France and attained some measure of notoriety. Gamba sold the rights to the psychic services of "Maria Duval", entering into a contractual arrangement with a group of people who used the name to promote the sale of astrology charts, possibly in the early 1990s. The new copyright holders (or perhaps people who bought in a subsequent transaction) developed the scam as it would be known throughout the world: using informat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Defraud
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensation) or criminal law (e.g., a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities), or it may cause no loss of money, property, or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, for example by obtaining a passport, travel document, or driver's license, or mortgage fraud, where the perpetrator may attempt to qualify for a mortgage by way of false statements. Internal fraud, also known as "insider fraud", is fraud committed or attempted by someone within an organisation such as an employee. A hoax is a distinct concept that involves deliberate deception without the intention of gain or of materially damaging or depriving a victi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wendy Grossman
Wendy M. Grossman (born January 26, 1954) is a journalist, blogger, and folksinger. Her writing has been published in several newspapers, magazines, and specialized publications. She is the recipient of the 2013 Enigma Award for information security reporting. Education Grossman was born in New York City. She graduated from Cornell University in 1975. Career Writer and editor In 1987, she founded the magazine '' The Skeptic'' in the United Kingdom and edited it for two years, resuming the editorship from 1999 to 2001. As founder and editor, she has appeared on numerous UK TV and radio programmes. Her credits since 1990 include work for ''Scientific American'', ''The Guardian'', and the ''Daily Telegraph'', as well as ''New Scientist'', ''Wired'' and ''Wired News'', and ''The Inquirer'' for which she wrote a regular weekly ''net.wars'' column. That column continues in '' NewsWireless'' and on her own site every Friday. She was a columnist for ''Internet Today'' from July 1996 un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rose Mackenberg
Rose Mackenberg (July 10, 1892 – April 10, 1968) was an American investigator specializing in fraudulent psychic mediums, known for her association with Harry Houdini. She was chief of a team of undercover investigators who investigated mediums for Houdini in the 1920s. After Houdini's death she continued to investigate spiritualist fraud for over 20 years and was known as an expert on the subject. She testified in court cases and before Congress and was interviewed in national magazines and on television. Early life Mackenberg was born July 10, 1892, and lived in Brooklyn, New York City. In her early years she worked as a stenographer in a law office and as an investigator in New York City. She later reported that, in her early life, she had believed that psychics and fortunetellers really were able to communicate with spirits and foretell the future. Houdini's investigator In the early 1920s, Mackenberg was working on a case involving investment losses that had been adv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Romance Scam
A romance scam is a confidence trick involving feigning romantic intentions towards a victim, gaining the victim's affection, and then using that goodwill to get the victim to send money to the scammer under false pretenses or to commit fraud against the victim. Fraudulent acts may involve access to the victim's money, bank accounts, credit cards, passports, e-mail accounts, or national identification numbers; or forcing the victims to commit financial fraud on their behalf. These scams are often perpetrated by organized criminal gangs, who work together to take money from multiple victims at a time. More money is lost each year to romance scams than to similar internet scams, such as technical support scams. Stolen images Romance scammers create personal profiles using stolen photographs of attractive people for the purpose of asking others to contact them. This is often known as catfishing. Often photos of unknown African actresses will be used to lure the victim into beli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Confessions Of A Conflicted Medium
Confessions are acknowledgements of facts by those who would have otherwise preferred to keep those facts hidden. Confessions may also refer to: Film, television, and radio * ''Confessions'' (1925 film), a British silent film * ''Confessions'' (2010 film), a Japanese film * ''The Confessions'' (film) (''Le confessioni''), a 2016 Italian film * Confessions series, a 1970s series of film adaptations of novels by Christopher Wood * "Confessions" (''Arrow''), a 2019 television episode * "Confessions" (''Breaking Bad''), a 2013 television episode * "Confessions" (''Roseanne''), a 1990 television episode * ''Confessions'' (radio programme), a British radio feature presented by Simon Mayo Literature * ''Confessions'' (Augustine), a 4th-century autobiographical work by St. Augustine of Hippo * ''Confession'' (Bakunin), an 1851 autobiographical work by Mikhail Bakunin * ''Confessions'' (Rousseau), a 1782–1789 autobiography by Jean-Jacques Rousseau * Confessions series, a 197 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Popoff
Peter George Popoff (born July 2, 1946) is a German-born American televangelist and debunked clairvoyant and faith healer. He was exposed in 1986 for using a concealed earpiece to receive radio messages from his wife, who gave him the names, addresses, and ailments of audience members during Popoff-led religious services. Popoff falsely claimed God revealed this information to him so that Popoff could pretend to cure them through faith healing. He went bankrupt the next year, but made a comeback in the late 1990s. Beginning in the mid-2000s, Popoff bought TV time to promote "Miracle Spring Water" on late-night infomercials, and referred to himself as a prophet. "We've done so many stories about him, but it never does any good," said Ole Anthony, founder of Trinity Foundation, which has investigated Popoff and other faith healers since 1987. "His scams are endless." "Miracle Spring Water" promotions were still running on TV channels in the United States and Canada in 2022. Ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Confidence Tricks
Confidence tricks and scams are difficult to classify, because they change often and often contain elements of more than one type. Throughout this list, the perpetrator of the confidence trick is called the "con artist" or simply "artist", and the intended victim is the "mark". Particular scams are mainly directed toward elderly people, as they may be gullible and sometimes inexperienced or insecure, especially when the scam involves modern technology such as computers and the internet. This list should not be considered complete but covers the most common examples. Get-rich-quick schemes Get-rich-quick schemes are extremely varied; these include fake franchises, real estate "sure things", get-rich-quick books, wealth-building seminars, self-help gurus, sure-fire inventions, useless products, chain letters, fortune tellers, quack doctors, miracle pharmaceuticals, foreign exchange fraud, Nigerian money scams, fraudulent treasure hunts, and charms and talismans. Variations incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Con Artists
This is a list of notable individuals who exploited confidence tricks. Born or active in the 17th century * William Chaloner (1650 – 1699): Serial counterfeiter and confidence trickster proven guilty by Sir Isaac Newton Born or active in the 18th century * Gregor MacGregor (1786–1845): Scottish con man who tried to attract investment and settlers for the non-existent country of "Poyais" * Jeanne of Valois-Saint-Rémy (1756-1791): Chief conspirator in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, which further tarnished the French royal family's already-poor reputation and, along with other causes, eventually led to the French Revolution Born or active in the 19th century * William Rockefeller Sr. (1810 - 1906): an American businessman, lumberman, herbalist, salesman, and con-artist. Two of his sons were Standard Oil co-founders John Davison Rockefeller Sr. and William Avery Rockefeller Jr. * George Appo (1856-1930): American fraudster, operated in New York and was involved in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini (, born Erik Weisz; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. His pseudonym is a reference to his spiritual master, French magician Robert-Houdin (1805–1871). He first attracted notice in vaudeville in the United States and then as "Harry 'Handcuff' Houdini" on a tour of Europe, where he challenged police forces to keep him locked up. Soon he extended his repertoire to include chains, ropes slung from skyscrapers, straitjackets under water, and having to escape from and hold his breath inside a sealed milk can with water in it. In 1904, thousands watched as he tried to escape from special handcuffs commissioned by London's ''Daily Mirror'', keeping them in suspense for an hour. Another stunt saw him buried alive and only just able to claw himself to the surface, emerging in a state of near-breakdown. While many suspected that these escapes were faked, Houdini prese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fortune Telling Fraud
Fortune telling fraud, also called the bujo or egg curse scam, is a type of confidence trick, based on a claim of secret or occult information. The basic feature of the scam involves diagnosing the victim (the "mark") with some sort of secret problem that only the grifter can detect or diagnose, and then charging the mark for ineffectual treatments. The archetypical grifter working the scam is a fortune teller who announces that the mark is suffering from a curse that their magic can relieve, while threatening dire consequences if the curse is not lifted. Method In this scam, a fortune teller uses cold reading to detect that a client is genuinely troubled rather than merely seeking entertainment; or is a gambler complaining of bad luck. The fortune teller informs the mark that they are the victim of a curse, but that for a fee a spell can be cast to remove the curse. In Romani, this trick is called , originally meaning simply "bag", but now meaning "a swindle involving a large ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flim-Flam!
''Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions'' is a 1980 book by magician and skeptic James Randi about paranormal, occult, and pseudoscience claims. The foreword is by science fiction author Isaac Asimov. Randi explores topics which he says that scientists and the media are too willing to promote without skepticism and proper expertise. Content Timothy Ferris wrote that ''Flim Flam!'' "will enlighten any reader who does not clearly understand that not one shard of evidence exists to prove that the Bermuda Triangle poses any special menace to ships and planes, that earth is being visited by alien spacecraft, that the unassisted power of the mind can read closed books, predict our future or induce levitation, or that the ' psychic surgeons' of the Philippines have relieved their patients of any burden more troublesome than their money." Randi levels criticism at the sloppy study designs and faulty controls of the investigations into remote viewing by Russell T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlatan
A charlatan (also called a swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or a similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, power, fame, or other advantages through false pretenses, pretense or deception. Synonyms for ''charlatan'' include ''shyster'', ''quack'', or ''faker''. ''Quack'' is a reference to ''quackery'' or the practice of dubious medicine, including the sale of snake oil, or a person who does not have medical training who purports to provide medical services. Etymology The word comes from French '','' a seller of medicines who might advertise his presence with music and an outdoor stage show. The best known of the Parisian charlatans was Tabarin, whose skits and farces were influenced by ''commedia dell'arte'' inspired Molière. The word can also be traced to Spanish ', an indiscreetly talkative person, a ''chatterbox''. Ultimately, etymologists trace ''charlatan'' from either the Italian ', to chatter or prattle; or from ''Cerretano'', a resident of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
