Posted by Via Coffee Loving Skeptic– The laziest example of peddling snake-oil I have ever seen.
- Revealed: Gorton church sells olive oil and blackcurrant squash as miracle ‘cure’ for cancer and HIV
- M.E.N. reporter: After just 15 minutes I was offered church’s ‘miracle cure’
- Pastor: We are trying to help … we aren’t hurting anyone
See, normally when people are scamming desperate people for money, the scammers put in quite a bit of effort on the front end, concocting a story for why their ‘alternative treatment’ is so fabulous. A good back-story can up your profit by orders of magnitude.
Its not a bottle of tap water… Its the tears of a crying statue of the Virgin Mary!
Its not a tuning fork… Its a sacred Cherokee instrument forged in the fires of Mount Doom to vibrate at the same resonance as the Universe!
Its not not a crushed ‘Centrum Chewable Vitamin for Kids’… Its a secret recipe of life-giving vitamins and minerals passed down for generations from Cleopatra in Ancient Egypt that BIG PHARMA DOESNT WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT.
But this group of folks put ZERO EFFORT into their scam. ZERO. They went to the grocery store, bought some bottles of regular ol Goya olive oil and some black currant drink, said the pastor or reverend or whatever blessed it, and sold it for 2X what the grocery store charged them.
They didnt even put it into fancy bottles or anything.
ITS STILL IN THE ORIGINAL GROCERY STORE PACKAGING.
Reporter with his PRICELESS 'cures'
Apparently they put all their effort into the sell:
It was the speed of it all which surprised me most – just 15 minutes earlier I had entered a church seeking guidance over a sick uncle and now I was being offered a miracle cure.
…
But after a few minutes the conversation quickly took a turn, despite me explaining that I had no strong religious views and certainly never mentioning I was looking for a miracle cure, I was told unequivocally that if I bought the blackcurrant squash on offer in the church shop it would cure my uncle’s cancer.
Now that theyve been caught, the pastor is bawwing about how pious he and his flock are, and how they arent hurting anyone, and gosh, they didnt know they were breaking any laws, blah blah… Except theyve been caught pulling this exact same stunt before. No one is buying it:
I respect that people are free to pursue their own beliefs but felt that in a vulnerable position I was offered the guarantee of a miracle cure in a bid to get me into the church.
Encouraging people to part with their cash promising a quick fix for a savage illness seems wrong, irrespective of belief. There are laws against it for a reason – to protect people when they feel at their most vulnerable.
Its not just about them turning a profit by selling a miracle cure of garbage at 14 pounds (~$22). Of course, you need more than one bottle for this ‘cure’ to work, two a week, so, $44 a week. Cancer treatment (or death from cancer) can last months to years. All the while, the victim and their family are attending the church, donating what, 10% of their income? If the patient lives, All Praise to Jesus (and the miracle cure), and the church gets a lifetime of 10% $$$. If the patient dies, then we have a funeral to throw, at the church, for another hefty fee. Thank God the church is there to comfort the family (again, a lifetime of 10% $$$).
To make matters worse, according to the reporter, theyre scamming people “in the middle of one of Manchester’s most deprived communities”.
Lazy, lazy, lazy hucksterism. But no less nefarious than more elaborate schemes.
August 20, 2012
August 20, 2012
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August 21, 2012