Who are the biggest SCAM artists?

omouallem

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For an alternative weekly in Edmonton, Canada, I am compiling an info box of the top 5 scam artists that selling pseudoscience, mystical, or straight BS. I want to hear from you guys and who you think should be on this list. If its someone obscure, can you quickly explain why they are so dangerous?

Here's my candidates so far:

Sylvia Browne

Erich von Däniken (Chariots of the Gods)

Benny Hinn & Peter Poppoff

Simon Brodie (Lifestyle Pets)

Kevin Trudeau

John Hogue (Nostradums expert/prophet/bad dresser)

John Edwards

Stephen Glass

Uri Geller
 
Biggest in stature? TV coverage? Estimated income? Scope of potential harm they cause? Size of organization? Number of followers?
 
I rank some of the AIDS scammers as the most repugnant and dangerous.

Matthias Rath for example, who persuades poor South African AIDS patients to forgo life-saving HIV meds in order to buy his useless and expensive vitamin C "cure".

See here for info

(and also see here and here and here)

What is particularly galling is that I have in effect PAID money to this scammer.
Rath won £100k damages against the British Medical Journal when they wrote about his shenanigans in germany when a child died from alternative treatments. Rath sued for libel and won as there was no conclusive proof the child had died as a direct result of Rath's efforts.
As I am a member of the British Medical Association, my hard earned cash which I have paid them as fees have gone towards paying this guy his damages.
 
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1. The Pope (Don't use condoms)
2. G.W. Bush (Lied to start a war)
 
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Biggest in stature? TV coverage? Estimated income? Scope of potential harm they cause? Size of organization? Number of followers?
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All of the above. I'm just looking for suggestions and diversity. I don't want to focus solely on psychics, or televangelists, but have a wide range. So whoever you think is a likely candidate, i'd like to know about.
 
Deetee said:
I rank some of the AIDS scammers as the most repugnant and dangerous.

Matthias Rath for example, who persuades poor South African AIDS patients to forgo life-saving HIV meds in order to buy his useless and expensive vitamin C "cure".
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Wow. Thank you. This is good material. I'll keep you posted on the article.
 
I think Uri is pretty much off the radar these days so I don't think he belongs on the list anymore.

I'd add:
David Miscavige
Deepak Chopra
I'll 2nd Joel Osteen, his football stadium, and the literal BARRELS he passes around for collection money.
 
I would not leave out...

Richard DeVos

Doug DeVos

Steve Van Andel

Russell Evans


and the rest of the lot heading up Amway/Quixtar/Alticor/Whatever the hell they call themselves now.
 
Deetee said:
Matthias Rath for example, who persuades poor South African AIDS patients to forgo life-saving HIV meds in order to buy his useless and expensive vitamin C "cure".
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Huge agreement on Rath! He's personally responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of people. I have about a half dozen cases on Whats The Harm that can be traced back to him, I finally got tired of reading about him and didn't research more.

My second vote would definitely be Kevin Trudeau. His books are all over the place, and he has infomercials on every single night on American cable TV. I had an insomniac moment a few months back and found two different infomercials of his on different channels simultaneously. Not only does he give people bad health advice, but he cultivates this attitude of distrust toward conventional medicine that is dangerous.

I'll think some more about who my other three would be.
 
Oh, I thought of one not mentioned: Alex Jones. He's sort of America's counterpart to Britain's David Icke, and peddles some of the same sort of conspiracy theory crap. New World Order. Reptilian overlords. 9/11 trooth. That sort of thing.

Jones was the cause of one of the oddest cases I have on What's The Harm: Richard McCaslin. This guy read some conspiracy-theory crap on one of Alex Jones' websites about Bohemian Grove, and decided to take action. End result? He is now spending ten years in federal prison because he believed crap posted on the web by that guy.
 
You´ll find a lot of proposals in this thread.

Post 79 contains the longest list.

The resulting poll with an extra thread attached to it can be found here.

Not all of them are scam artists, some are just plain nuts. Sometimes it´s hard to distinguish between the groups, as was discussed in the thread.
 
A minor player, but one who really bugs me...

Armando Montelongo of A&E's Flip This House television series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_This_House_(TV_series)

Season Three

During 2007, many of the Montelongo properties that were in various stages of renovation and preparation for sale became listed for foreclosure due to mortgage non-payment. Despite claims by Armando Montelongo that these properties were "not mine" and belonged to his brother David, there is no evidence of this whatsoever and the properties were solely in Armando's name. More than 20 properties in Armando's name were foreclosed by VCH funding. [8]

On February 21, 2008, Armando Montelongo was indicted by a Travis County grand jury on a "theft of service charge." It is alleged he failed to pay over $4,000 in fees to an appraisal service. If convicted, Montelongo faces 2 years in state prison.[9][10] As of June 2008, Montelongo had managed to postpone the proceedings several times, but will not likely be able to do so much beyond June of 2008.

In April of 2008, a civil suit was filed in Bexar County, TX by Mirko Desabota against Armando Montelongo for fraud in real estate transactions, breach of fiducuary duty, securities fraud, and associated damages stemming from a deal into which Desabota entered with Montelongo to remodel properties. In the complaint, Desabota describes a document which Montelongo wanted him to sign absolving Montelongo of all liability in the matter. Numerous parties involved with Montelongo who subsequently filed complaints against him (including Linda Gass, the appraiser who Montelongo is facing 2 years in state prison for not paying $4000) also describe being pressured to sign such "settlement agreements" by Montelongo.
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A completely unscrupulous real estate "flipper", who paints a completely bogus picture of the reality of real estate in general, and flipping in particular. He's now trying to sell the illusion of wealth and success he created in the form of a "how to" program:

http://www.armandomontelongo.com/

Yuck! The man is utter scum.
 
How can Joel Osteen be grouped with these other rascals? I'm not an expert on him but I have listened to parts of 4 or 5 of his half hour weekly sermons and if you get past the part he knows what god wants the only thing I might say is harmful is that he says god wants you to be healthy. Maybe that might make you feel bad if you have something you will never recover from but Osteen doesn't say that to make cancer victims feel bad, he says it because he believes that positive thinking will help you. His preaching is kind of new-age woo much like Tony Robbins and his version of NLP, but I don't see it as being evil like the other people mentioned on this thread.

I've seen him on 60 minutes and he doesn't personally accept any money donated to that huge church of his -- he lives on the money from his books. He seems to live modestly for someone with his wealth. I saw parts of his Larry King interview where he took heat for saying it's up to god not him on taking a position on who goes to hell and who commits sin. He keeps away from the ugly parts of religion and sticks to saying god wants you to sit up straight, wear a clean shirt to work and try to do a good job and get a promotion. God wants you to have a nice car and take care of your health. Osteen thinks god can take care of a lot of detail which is silly but is it harmful? Osteen (at least Joel, his dad may have been a snake handler, I can't say anything about his dad who started that church) doesn't claim to heal or sell miracle water or manna or even ask for money on his TV show. I admire his speaking style, he has a message, tells a story about someone in the bible and then tells a story about himself or someone he knows. He's a gifted speaker.

I wouldn't use the term biggest scam artists but say evilest should be reserved for those who give false hope to the sick and those who fleece elderly people.
 
Senex said:
How can Joel Osteen be grouped with these other rascals? I'm not an expert on him but I have listened to parts of 4 or 5 of his half hour weekly sermons and if you get past the part he knows what god wants the only thing I might say is harmful is that he says god wants you to be healthy. Maybe that might make you feel bad if you have something you will never recover from but Osteen doesn't say that to make cancer victims feel bad, he says it because he believes that positive thinking will help you. His preaching is kind of new-age woo much like Tony Robbins and his version of NLP, but I don't see it as being evil like the other people mentioned on this thread.

I've seen him on 60 minutes and he doesn't personally accept any money donated to that huge church of his -- he lives on the money from his books. He seems to live modestly for someone with his wealth. I saw parts of his Larry King interview where he took heat for saying it's up to god not him on taking a position on who goes to hell and who commits sin. He keeps away from the ugly parts of religion and sticks to saying god wants you to sit up straight, wear a clean shirt to work and try to do a good job and get a promotion. God wants you to have a nice car and take care of your health. Osteen thinks god can take care of a lot of detail which is silly but is it harmful? Osteen (at least Joel, his dad may have been a snake handler, I can't say anything about his dad who started that church) doesn't claim to heal or sell miracle water or manna or even ask for money on his TV show. I admire his speaking style, he has a message, tells a story about someone in the bible and then tells a story about himself or someone he knows. He's a gifted speaker.

I wouldn't use the term biggest scam artists but say evilest should be reserved for those who give false hope to the sick and those who fleece elderly people.
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Well, if he said it on 60 Minutes it must be true. Foolish me, what was I thinking? I was worried that you may be gullible but it's good so see that I was mistaken.
 
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