While being a member of the "Gypsy" or Romany ethnic group does not by itself make somebody a bad person (thinking so would be racism plain and simple), there is a Gypsy subculture in this country and probably throughout the Western world that encourages those born and raised in it to defraud gullible and vulnerable people in the larger cultures in which they operate.
The most well-known form of this scamming is psychic-scamming. These pseudo-psychics will tell you that you have a curse on you, and paying them A LOT of money will enable them to do the necessary "spiritual" work to remove your curse.
When I consulted Ann Taylor AKA Helen Johns, she was smart enough to dispense with the nonsense described above in its usual form and repackage it in more New-Age terms, and I fell for it, at least at first. The paragraphs below are the narrative of my experience that I sent in to a website that exposes these practices:
I was actually a bit taken aback by all the Christianity stuff on her altar. I found her "speaking from On High" manner a bit off-putting but she got some apparent hits without my telling anything about me. (But now that I realize her game, I see that her "hits" were more off than on.) She probably based her rather generalized statements on the fact that I'm a heavy-set Gen-X fellow with a dour and reserved demeanor, and certain things are very likely going to be true about somebody such as myself, especially if that person is seeing a shrink or a psychic.
She said that I have a "negativity" that is holding me back, but paying $150 for a meditative partnership with her would help me rid myself of this negativity. Why did I fall for it? What I thought this "meditative partnership" was going to involve was her using her psychic mojo to help me be a better meditator. Meditation does seem to help those who are good at it, but to be good at it, one must quiet the inane chatter of the conscious mind. So in other words, I mistakenly thought she was going to help me empower myself rather than doing the opposite that she ended up trying to do.
I am not an early riser, so she had me getting up earlier than was my wont for these morning sessions as part of this meditation therapy. That should have made me wonder, I suppose, because the TM people taught me that one needs to be well-rested to meditate effectively. I guess I just thought that Ms. Johns was putting me through spiritual bootcamp.
What raised a red flag first was her claim in a meeting on early Sunday afternoon that my negativity was going to "destroy" my life if I didn't purify myself of it. Now I know my [butt] from a hole in the ground spirituality-wise, and I know that creating fear around a spiritual process is not appropriate spirituality.
Sure enough, Ms. Johns asked for more money in our session yesterday. For me, it has always been an iron truism that when someone isn't straight with you from the get-go about how much money they're going to ultimately want from you, they are a swindler.
When I told Ms. Johns that I had paid as much money as I was going to pay, she then laid on me the hardest sell to which I had ever been subjected. Had I been the weak-minded and naive type who very likely comprises Ms. John's mostly working-class clientele, it probably would have worked better than any telemarketer's spiel ever could. But for [me], it all just screamed, "Scam, scam, scam, scam; scam, scam, scam, scam!"
So I just held up my hand and said, "I am terminating this association." And that was that. I felt as if the 27 Bus couldn't convey me away from Ms. Johns's Greenfield neighborhood fast enough. When the 15 Bus brought me back to the Cudahy-South Milwaukee area where I live, I experienced the odd sensation of actually being glad to see the sorry old place.
I talked to [someone in the know] about "Ann Taylor" and found out that Ms. Johns is widely known for her scamming ways. One poor woman, according to my source, was giving Ms. Johns her jewelry because she had no money and also cleaning Ms. John's house!
If that poor woman had no money to afford jewelry, I'd be willing to guess that the jewelry she gave away consisted of family heirlooms! Oi Vey! And my source called what Ms. Johns was doing a "Gypsy scam"; you can imagine [my surprise] when I typed "Gypsy scams" into a search engine and your site with a picture of Ms Johns's house was the first thing that was listed! When it rains, it truly pours, eh?
For more information, you can find the site in question by typing "gypsy psychic scams" into a search engine, and this site will almost certainly be the first one listed.
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