Man Loses Millions In Bizarre Virus-Protection Scam 366
Orome1 writes "A US court has heard that a couple conned at least $6 million from the great-grandson of an oil industry tycoon after he brought his virus-infected computer in for repair. The couple are said to have tricked the composer into believing that, while investigating the virus, they had found evidence that his life was in danger – concocting a story that the virus had been tracked to a hard drive in Honduras, and that evidence had been found that the composer's life was in danger." The victim here, Roger Davidson, may have lost as much as $20 million, after being convinced that he was in danger from a grand conspiracy. Vickram Bedi and girlfriend Helga Invarsdottir convinced Davidson to pay $160,000 monthly, and possibly much more, for their help.
Not creative enough. (Score:4, Informative)
Bet these chumps would fall for that too.
Can you con an honest man? (Score:5, Informative)
The New York Times has a more in-depth article [nytimes.com] on this case, and it seems strange indeed.
There's an old saying: "You can't con an honest man." Most cons work because they prey on the victim's own greed or baser emotions. I wonder how much of this was going on in this case?
The Times article contains a few choice tidbits. Apparently, once he got into cahoots with the scammers, Mr. Davidson got involved with some plot of theirs to sue Wachovia Bank for mismanaging Davidson's trust fund, among other things. That sounds suspiciously like the classic con, where you give the con man some of your money in return for the promise that he'll get you lots more money later.
If nothing else, Davidson does sound a little credulous, and possibly mentally ill. The scammers told him his life was supposedly in danger from a group of Polish priests with ties to Opus Dei, whom the scammers told him had a plan to overthrow the United States government. How plausible is that? But then, if you were already rabidly anti-Catholic, it might sound very plausible. Most of us probably wouldn't believe there was an international conspiracy on our lives in the first place, no matter how rich we were; but if you were mentally unstable with delusions of grandeur, you might.
The final paragraph of the NYT article says Davidson's outgoing voicemail message says, “If you leave an ad or any other such message, your telephone wire will be fried automatically.” Who would claim such a thing? You might as well say you're going to report them to the Men in Black.
It seems to me that if Davidson was thinking clearly, none of this would have played out the way it did -- but I guess we knew that already.
Re:Stupid Tax v. Scam (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. This is racketeering plain and simple. Possibly well targeted racketeering, but still the same. Haven't you ever believed something wasn't true? Should people be allowed to maliciously target others with stories defined by false pretenses?
Using someone's fear of further harm to extort money is not all that different than the mob coming in and telling you pay up or else. Throw these crooks in jail.
Re:Now That's Bizarre (Score:3, Informative)
Unlike everyone here who has all there important documents^Hporn encrypted
"important documentporn"? I think you meant ^W or ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H.
Re:And... (Score:0, Informative)
Please mod parent Troll or at least Flamebait.
Re:Wish it was just as simple as stupid.. (Score:3, Informative)
As someone with a family member with a form of dementia, I can tell you that yes, you are wrong.
This family member has developed paranoia and a number of delusions, causing her to grossly mismanage her sizable savings. However, she is still performing the ordinary activities that retired people do.
Have you ever known someone with schizophrenia? They can simultaneously believe that George Bush calls them on their cell phone every evening while holding a job and living a life that seems normal on the surface.
There is ample evidence that one can retain the ability to do procedures (even complex ones) while losing the ability to discriminate between rational, irrational, and delusional thoughts.
Re:Now That's Bizarre (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Now That's Bizarre (Score:4, Informative)
Incidentally, TFA makes a little fun about Opus Dei, featured in the Da Vinci Code being one of the supposed villains that are after him. Okay, that's a bit of a red flag, but Opus Dei do actually exist and are a sort of sub-cult within Catholicism. They've got their claws into various influential people and actually score moderately well on the Sinister Scale. Lower than Wahabism, bobbing along under Scientology, but certainly high above your run of the mill nutters.
Re:Wish it was just as simple as stupid.. (Score:3, Informative)
Okay. I am sufficiently chastised.