telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (09/04/90)
While conversing with someone the other day about profitable 900
services, we tried to decide which would make more money for the
proprietor of such a service: sex or religion. Both would pay, but
which would be more profitable? We left it as a toss up.
And now comes a report from the {Weekly World News}, July 31, 1990,
which leads me to believe religion would be a far more profitable type
of 900 service. Here is the report from WWN:
"Suckers Fork Over Big $$ to Talk to God on the Phone!"
By Scotty Paul
Desperate, downtrodden believers were easy prey for three coldhearted
con artists who bilked them out of their life savings -- by pretending
to have a direct phone line to God.
But instead of talking to the Almighty, the gullible old fools were
chitchatting with a bearded wino in a rundown flat in the ghetto of
Naples, Italy.
[Moderator's Note: Bearded wino in a rundown flat? Sounds like a few
900-Service phone rooms in Chicago! PAT]
"Those poor people were lonely with nothing much to live for except a
glimpse into the hereafter," said Police Inspector Guiseppi Nonno.
"They were convinced they were talking to God and paid big money to do
it."
The sleazy swindle was set up by two ex-convicts, Antonio Meli and
Mario Locatelli, according to Inspector Nonno.
"They charged 50,000 lire ($40 USA) for the first minute, and 25,000
lire for each additional minute thereafter," he added. "Some of the
victims gave these bums everything they had."
Heartless hucksters Meli and Locatelli showed no remorse as they were
convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to six years in prison.
They admitted forming a weird religious cult and persuading naive,
trusting souls to join. "And then the two creeps squeezed them dry.
Three believers even mortgaged their homes," said Inspector Nonno.
The greedy gurus opened their hotline to God soon after an elderly
woman came into their headquarters pleading for spiritual guidance.
"She was afraid the Devil had taken over her soul. She wanted to drive
him away and get right with God again," said Meli at his trial.
Another pitiful old man sought sanctuary in the cult because he was
lonely. "There was really nothing going on in his life ... nothing to
live for," said Meli. "He wanted to talk to God about heaven."
"We told them we could arrange for them to talk to God directly," Meli
testified. "They fell for it hook, line and sinker."
Playing God was alcoholic Roberto Scalfari, a well-educated man who
had once been a college professor, but had slipped to skid row.
"We gave him a piece of the action and he was a very, very convincing
God," said Meli. "When the word spread, people were lining up to use
our heavenly line. We could not make the calls fast enough."
Scalfari died of liver failure before he could be brought to trial for
his part in the crime.
----------------------
And you thought 900 Service was a ripoff!
PTnagle@well.uucp (John Nagle) (09/05/90)
I suspect that such a service would be legal in the U.S. The difference between that and the lines run by some televangelists is slight. John Nagle [Moderator's Note: I really don't think I could start a 900 line and purport to be Goddess, without having the Federal Bureau of Inquisition breathing down my neck; freedom of religion and speech not withstanding. I know I'm simply divine :), but I don't think it would fly here either. I could offer prayers to Goddess; interpret and explain Her wishes; deny Her existence, i.e. "Dial The Athiest" in Austin, TX; but I don't think I could claim to be Goddess without running afoul of the law. PAT]
bellutta@irst.it (Paolo Bellutta) (09/05/90)
In TELECOM Digest Volume 10, Issue 617, Message 1 of 10 our Moderator reports a nice rip off from a guy in Naples using a service to talk to God. I don't have any problem in beleiving the fact that someone in Naples could come up with such an idea. I remember that someone, just after the Chernobyl accident, was going door to door to "decontaminate money". After collecting the money from the people he asked to be left alone with the money so that people couldn't be contaminated, then he would steal the money, and tell those poor people not to enter the room for some hours. Anyway, in the message about this God Calling Service, there is something that sounds strange. As far as I know in Italy while there is a service similar to the 800 numers (the "prefix" 1678 costs as a local call from everywhere in the country), there is no equivalent to the 900 numbers. The phone service is billed by SIP (the Italian Telco) in therms of "scatti" (roughly "ticks"). A local call costs one tick (not everywhere), a 1678- call one tick, and long distance calls are billed on a time basis (one tick every xx seconds, where xx depends on the distance and time of call). SIP offers some services, like DA, DA in Europe, international DA, time, news, weather report, etc. The cost of these services is expressed in ticks as well. For example DA is free if the number is not yet published on the phone directory otherwise is five ticks, time is three ticks and so on. These services are operated by the Telco (some of them in association with other companies. For example, news is organized by RAI the public broadcasting company). But I've never seen a pay-phone service organized by other companies. Therefore I see no way that this guy collected that money using the phone calls. Paolo Bellutta I.R.S.T. vox: +39 461 814417 loc. Pante' di Povo fax: +39 461 810851 38050 POVO (TN) e-mail: bellutta@irst.uucp ITALY bellutta%irst@uunet.uu.net [Moderator's Note: My assumption is they put the call through on a regular phone line, taking care the sucker did not see what number was dialed. They then collected money from the person, handed the victim the phone, and let them talk to God for a certain number of minutes before taking the phone away. If the police had not broken up the racket first, I guess it would have stopped anyway since they say God is dead, apparently from liver disease. PAT]
mtv@milton.u.washington.edu (David Schanen) (09/06/90)
>[Moderator's Note: ..deleted stuff.. I don't think I could claim to be >Goddess without running afoul of the law. PAT] "Thou Art God" -Valentine Michael Smith from 'Stranger in a Strange Land' by Robert Heinlein Internet: mtv@milton.u.washington.edu * UUNET: ...uunet!uw-beaver!u!mtv
gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon LETWIN) (09/08/90)
Re: the discussion of how the Italian "God Calling Service" worked -
please note that the {World Weekly News}, which published this story,
routinely makes up their stories from whole cloth. So trying to make
sense of this story might be like trying to learn physics by studying
Star Trek episodes.
When standing in supermarket checkout lines I used to amuse myself by
reading the headlines on these rags and trying to guess what the real,
underlying story really was. When I learned that they weren't just
distorting a germ of fact, but were literally just writing fiction,
then all the fun was out of it. (I forget where I learned about this
(and similar rags) story creation - I think it was an interview with
an ex reporter for the sister pub. of WWN - Nat Enq?)
Gordon Letwinwnp@relay.eu.net (wolf paul) (09/10/90)
In article <11893@accuvax.nwu.edu> gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon LETWIN) writes: >Re: the discussion of how the Italian "God Calling Service" worked - >please note that the {World Weekly News}, which published this story, >routinely makes up their stories from whole cloth. ... >When standing in supermarket checkout lines I used to amuse myself by >reading the headlines on these rags and trying to guess what the real, >underlying story really was. When I learned that they weren't just Actually, I found that often there was not even a story inside the paper for the most outrageous headlines on the front page, not just in the WWN, but its sister rags likewise. Some relevant questions to judge the credibility of the story about the Italian "service": How did the perpetrators charge their victims? Does Italy indeed have something similar to 976 or 900 service? If not, how did they charge, considering that credit cards are still a lot less common in Europe than in the US, particularly in southern Europe, and especially among the segment of society falling for such a scam (lonely old folks). Wolf N. Paul, IIASA, A - 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, Europe PHONE: +43-2236-71521-465 FAX: +43-2236-71313 UUCP: uunet!iiasa.at!wnp INTERNET: wnp%iiasa.at@uunet.uu.net BITNET: tuvie!iiasa!wnp@awiuni01.BITNET