Can God's Fraud Squad Make You Rich?
In the London Free Press, there is a story on the House of God also being the House of Con.
"In traditional church language, the congregation is the flock.They are supposed to follow their shepherd, the Lord.
Too often, the flock is instead fleeced.
Churches have become a prime breeding ground for multi-million dollar affinity frauds, in which con artists convince others to invest in scams.
"The church is the best environment to sell a product like this," says Rev. John Haycock, a Presbyterian minister and member of God's Fraud Squad in B.C. "
You might think it odd that a close knit community could be infiltrated so easily. After all, most of these affinity frauds involve an outsider. How does the outsider become so easily trusted?
Mimicry.
"A con artist can learn a church's theology and style simply by going online and reading a church website."They know how to speak the language," Haycock says.
Once a scammer joins a church, he or she makes friends with a leader or elder others trust.
The con artist gets to know other church members and when one day someone mentions a little financial difficulty or how it would be nice to have a little more cash, the con artist sets the trap."
Generally, the language on a website reveals the type of discourse you would like to engage in.
When the con criminal mimics your favourite phrases and statements of purpose, you come to an immediate rapport: why this fella is just like me!
Not quite. This fellow mimic is out to separate you from your cash.
Haycock makes another good observation.
"Haycock and Catholic priest Seamus Mackrell work with the B.C. Securities Commission to help churches stop fraud in their congregations before it happens.Both men work in hospitals and noticed several years ago that many of the churchgoers suffering stress and depression were victims of fraud.
Victims and their church leaders rarely want to talk publicly about the scams, but that's exactly what must happen, Haycock says."
There is an nice W5 television show about God's Fraud Squad, but it doesn't address the fundamental question. Why do people not want to talk about be defrauded?
Well, as we discussed earlier in "cooling out the mark" one of the reasons that there is not a lot of talk within the church about scam is some Erving Goffman described:
"As another cooling procedure, there is the possibility that the operator and the mark may enter into a tacit understanding according to which the mark agrees to act as if he were leaving of his own accord, and the operator agrees to preserve the illusion that this was the case.It is a form of bribery.
In this way the mark may fail in his own eyes but prevent others from discovering the failure.
The mark gives up his role but saves his face.
This, after all, is one of the reasons why persons who are fleeced by con men are often willing to remain silent about their adventure."
It is impossible to deal with fraud without a sophisticated understanding of the behavioral mechanics with allow smart, sophisticated people to be beat by their own tendencies.
Read More From BizOp News
March 20, 2008
Folsom Fraud - How it Worked
Very interesting article about a religious based ponzi scheme.
"Investigators have presented to the U.S. Attorney's Office evidence for their belief that Wilson's Christians In Crisis Investment Fund was a Ponzi scheme, a personal money pool from which Wilson paid bogus returns to early investors with cash from later investors -- not from any earned investment proceeds.Agents believe Wilson then played the stock market, badly, with the bulk of the loot.
Suspected shenanigans among ministries and private accounts allowed Wilson to buy a $1 million Folsom house and a $168,000 sports car, federal warrant documents state.
An indictment of Wilson on the evidence must be handed down by March 11, or Wilson would be freed."
There are a number of factors in play here, but I was interested to note that the story reported that
"Christians in Crisis Investment Fund, Wilson's company in Folsom, mimics the name of a Sacramento-based ministry, Christians in Crisis International.Bystrowski's company name mimics that of another entity of comparatively high profile, Menlo Park-based Opus Capital Group."
The mimicry or outright theft of authority is not just a red flag: it is THE red flag. If you sign one of these signs, don't just run away - never ever be in that position.
Unfortunately, trusting and verifying is hard to do against this particular technique. You are prone to simple ignore the differences.
Only an experienced investigator could tell you whether this was a fraud technique or simply careless expression.
