2.08.2008

Bad Psychic Gets Rich - Then Gets Caught

Psychics are notoriously deaf to their own warnings. Somehow, they just can't foretell when they'll be caught. In the following case, a psychic in New York (tammy Mitchell, aka Jillian) bilked people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are two lessons to be learned: 1) people will lie, and 2) other people will believe their lies.
Swindling psychic at it again?

A total of nearly $400 to start. Douglas Lonneker says he started small too, but ended up paying Mitchell, the psychic he knows as Jillian, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sarah: "How quickly did she get you into the big money?" Lonneker: "Pretty quickly. I mean the first week, I was in $200,000."

Read about her previous conviction here.

2 comments:

Walter said...

"A fool and his money are soon parted."

But ethically speaking (not legally speaking), what's the victim's responsibility in this sort of thing? I don't have much sympathy for them, unless they've got some obvious handicap that makes them easy targets (dementia-prone elderly folks, low IQ folks, etc.).

Sanswoo said...

It certainly is an expensive way to learn a lesson. Still, there will always be weak minded people (through no fault of their own) and they should be afforded some amount of protection against this fraudsters. With baby boomers heading into old age, they are easily susceptible, especially those old ladies living alone with nothing to do but watch QVC and Kevin Trudeau infomercials. Now's a great time to get into the psychic business. It's also a great time to be a skeptic, because there will be a never ending supply of fish in the barrel.