re: Which of these scams did your parents/grandparents fall for?

Most of the things listed are not true scams.
I have some neighbors who fell for a true scam.
They gave money to a billionaire politician to pay his legal fees for his fraudulent behavior.

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We lived out in the country, corn fields of Illinois. Every summer the gypsy painters would stop by offering to paint the barn, crib or even the grain bin for cheap. My dad finally relented once and let them paint the grain bin, it looked like they used 4 gallons of thinner with every gallon of paint. Paint runs, mismatched colors, looked like crap and then when it dries you are stuck with it. Or have to hire a real painter to paint over it.

There's also the paving gypsies. they have some asphalt leftover from a job and can put it down for cheap. They have enough to do about 25 feet and then need some $ to get more materials. They get the money and don't come back.

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They are still at it. They are based mainly just north of Aiken South Carolina. Not only do they do these very things but when you balk one of them will flop like a euro league soccer player and most likely in a few months your home owners insurance will be settling with them for 20 or 30 grand to keep from spending even more on litigation. If all you get is some running paint or 10 feet of asphalt you are LUCKY.

They will also get violent if need be...and the way they live they basically do not exist so going to jail is not something that happens to them.

They also are heavily involved in used RV sells with HUGE lots where they scam people left and right...even to the point of taking cash for one camper and then convincing the person they bought another one...one that would'nt make it across the lot let alone down the road. When that person calls the cops the cops come and tell them that is the camper you paid for....take it or leave it. If you do happen to leave with the one you thought you bought you did so because it was stolen and they had gotten word that the man was closing in on it. They do not do their normal business within a 100 mile radius of Murphy Village because they are semi-protected in the area by local officials due to their wealth and connections. They pay tribute to the leader who keeps the local authorities at bay by contributing to their political coffers and most likely outright pay offs. They did use to run some massage parlors and the like in the area but both Georgia and South Carolina put a stop to that after the shooting in Atlanta.


They make their walking around money from various crimes as described but their wealth, and it is substantial, came from the practice of buying a life insurance policy an anyone they could and for certain any baby born into the group and naming the leader as beneficiary. Never heard of them killing anyone for the insurance but their lifestyle is conducive to folks dying at an early age and when they do the leader collects a sizeable amount of money and the whole group gets a taste.

They also have arranged marriages between adult men and girls as young as 12 or so. The state of South Carolina raised the age of marriage to 14 from 12 in 1996. 1996. 27 years ago. The travelers still have marriages before that age, many of which result in babies, and the state more or less ignores it. They also sell 12 year old girls to other traveler groups spread out across the US.

It was well known that you could ignore the requests for o purchase or more and their collection notices. Columbia/BMG didn’t care because there were so many people falling for the scam that they didn’t have to bother with jumping through legal hopes to get a person to fork over a couple of hundred bucks to complete the membership.

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Are these the same people from “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding?”

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I think only a few episodes was about the main compound. I have not watched it but I have heard this was true. They are spread out across the country but Murphy's Village is where the money is kept. I would imagine when they agreed to do reality TV it was understood that exposing Murphy's Village to a wide audience was not a good idea. Each group has a leader who is paid tribute but he pays tribute to Murphy's village. Most of the larger groups are in the south though...

Few months ago, my mom thought she was talking to Amazon customer service. They had her driving to CVS to buy Amazon gift cards and read the numbers to them. During her 2nd visit to CVS, worker there asked her and realized she was being scammed. They got her for a hundred (she says)...

I said Mom, why would Amazon need you to drive in your car somewhere to physically buy Amazon gift cards?

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Way overpriced? Yes Scam? Not really My Rainbow is over 20 years old and still works like new

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They got my mom for this one. I mean it lasted a long time but as a young kid who did some of the vacuuming, all the hoses, water refills etc were a pain in the arse. I’m sure it worked like it was supposed to cause the water was always dirty afterwards. just remembered it cost a freaking ton of money.

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World Book Encyclopedia

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This was the Internet before there was an Internet. My parents bought a set in the late 70's. I was fascinated by the wealth of knowledge in the World Books. Learned as much from them about government, history, and geography as I did in middle school. While they are obsolete now, it was a great investment back in the day if someone wanted to learn a little about virtually everything.

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World Book Encyclopedia.

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Not sure this was a scam. Back before smartphones and google, that's the way people looked things up.

My mom still has our entire Britannica set on her bookshelf.

World Book Encyclopedia was great. All kinds of information that you owned. It was static in the sense it wouldn't be edited like info on the internet or e-books to fit the prevailing "theories" ( eg only male/female). A great resources and wish I still had a set (tho my wife hates clutter).

Mom had a Kirby Vacuum but I don't know how long it lasted. Bought it around 1979 after we moved.

All kinds of tupperware in the house.

I did BMG/Columbia with a friend and we got all kinds of CDs... for cheap!