Man gets scammed for $20mil. The dangers of conspiracy theories

A New York couple have been charged with defrauding a wealthy musician to the tune of $20 million (£12.3 million) after he innocently visited their computer servicing company to have a virus removed from his laptop.

The hard-to-believe story started in 2004 when moneyed pianist Roger Davidson asked Mount Kisco computer store owners Vickram Bedi, 36, and his Icelandic girlfriend Helga Invarsdottir, 39, to rid his computer of a virus.

According to police, the pair were able to convince Davidson that the virus was in fact a symptom of a much larger plot in which he was being menaced by government intelligence agencies, foreign nationals and even priests associated with Catholic organisation, Opus Dei.

So convinced was the victim he is said to have agreed to pay the pair $160,000 per month for 24-hour protection against the fictitious threats, payments which continued until recently.

www.itworld.com...

I think something like this shows the danger of believing every conspiracy theory under the sun. I do wonder, though, if this guy had some kind of mental illness. I just have trouble seeing how they were able to convince him of this fake plot so easily.

The guy really should have asked himself, "Why would intelligence agencies and Opus Dei want to kill me?"

wow, he was paying them 160, 000 a month? i'm gonna learn to play the piano!!!

I wonder if he visited conspiracy sites, or had certain files on his computer and the couple found out and played into his fears that way. Maybe that is how they knew he would buy it.
I would think that would make several people here think twice about taking their computers in for repair .

reply to post by toolstarr


You raise some good points. That could very likely be how they knew he would fall for the scam. I have never heard of one like this before. What baffles me is, why did he pay a couple of computer tech people? Why not a PI to try to find out if the threat was real? Or call the cops? Or hell, just run!

reply to post by InvisibleAlbatross


Thank you for making my night.......

I hope he was a sheep, and not mentally unstable......

It's a great scam and will probably be a movie in two years starring Bruce Willis as the paranoid piano player

This isn't a conspiracy. It was just two stupid people taking advantage of an even dumber person. Wouldn't you think that he might have inquired to see the evidence? Thats like someone going to Best Buy to get their computer fixed, and the geek squad telling them that Obama has planted a malicious software on your computer that we cannot remove, but your going to have to pay us a large amount of money to reset the program every month because it requires credit card numbers to reset. Or else your going to go to Guantanamo Bay for absolutely no reason.

Wow. He totally deserved that for being a complete fool.

reply to post by squirelnutz


Will it end with him seeking revenge and fighting against a group of PMCs and then getting his money (and daughter?) back from the couple?