Peter Popoff - Televangelist scammer targeting your grandmother

PurpleDude said:
Honest question: Is Jim Bakker an actual scam artist like Popoff or just insane? I can't tell.
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Well, he did go to prison for mail and wire fraud. So I'd say yes. He's still less of a scammer than Popoff at this point because people buying his overpriced shitty food buckets actually do get overpriced shitty food buckets as advertised.
 
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If Petey isn't producing that much consistent content, we might be better off with a general-purpose televangelist thread. All these guys are basically cut from the same cloth, check out these ones trying to justify spending millions of grandmas' dollars on private planes:
 
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SomeSonicFag said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaFCGx3SIFs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vkW8VYj6NA

Peter Popoff is a televangelist con-artist asshole who uses scummy deals to attempt to con mentally-weak people out of their money. In the 60's Popoff started to preach at his local church. He claimed that he could "foretell the future" using his l33t hax0r God given skillz. Popoff urged anybody listening to his sermons to "break free of the devil" and throw their (probably placebo) prescription pills onto the stage. Later on, Popoff would command wheelchair-bound people to "rise and break free". They would then stand and walk perfectly fine, not needing any sort of help to learn how to walk. Obviously, since everybody on this site is a classy, smart individual, you should have deduced that the recipients of these cures were hired by Popoff himself to sit in wheelchairs.

Later on, in 1985, Popoff would collecte donations for a program to give free Bibles to citizens of the Soviet Union via helium filled balloons. By an amazing "coincidence", his office was broken into and every single scrap of money was taken. After this, Popoff would tearfully beg for more neet bucks from old ultra-conservative men and women.

Popoff started accurately announcing home addresses and specific illnesses of his audience members to prove that his "God-given abilities" were not, in fact a sham. However, Popoff was exposed in 1986 by James Randi, starting an immense lolcoaster. As it turns out, Popoff was using an earpiece to recieve transmissions from his wife who would dox people in the audience via prayer request cards filled out by audience members. Alexander Jason, a crime scene analyst and electronics expert, helped to pick up these messages using radio scanners and created a video interspersing the transmissions with Popoff's sermon. The best bit of this was when Randi planted some accomplices in Popoff's audience including, I shit you not, a man dressed as a woman, whom Popoff "cured" of uterine cancer. Even better was Elizabeth Popoff describing this "woman" to Popoff as "...that big nigger in the back..." and warning him to "Keep your hands off those tits..." At another session later on, Elizabeth and her aides were heard laughing at the appearance of a man suffering from testicular cancer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNl52deOZro&t=14s

In May 1986, Popoff came onto "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", and was faced with
this evidence. Popoff started out denying Randi and accusing NBC of hiring an actress to impersonate his wife. However, he eventually admitted the radio device existing, but claimed that Elizabeth only "occasionally" gave him "the name of a person who needs special prayers". He also stated that, "almost everybody" knew about this wireless communication system. This was apparently untrue, however, as his donations and ratings declined significantly. In September 1987, he declared bankruptcy, and embezzled the remaining money that he had.

You, my esteemed shitposters, may be wondering what this ancient history has to do with anything today, well, I am here to tell you that he is back. On February 2007, an Inside Edition segment reported that Popoff had new infomercials that depicted him "healing the sick" in the same manner as before. However, it had been about 20 or so years, and, considering the average human has an attention span of 8 seconds, pretty much everybody forgot about this guy. Some victims were interviewed, including some poor married couple who said that Popoff took THOUSANDS of dollars from them! Popoff refused to comment on this atrocity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4HyYwkEvLA

His new scam is to sell Miracle Springs Water, a packet of water that will apparently give you financial prosperity as long as you sleep with the water for one night, drink it afterwards, pray over the empty packet, and sprinkle some of the included "Dead-Sea-Salt", (which is just regular fucking salt that you could probably steal from a fast food restaurant while some underpaid cashier wasn't looking) over a check for $27 and send it to him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGuawSq6zDA

Despite Popoff claiming that his company donates this "measly" amount to charity, his organization has a "Did Not Disclose" rating with the "Better Business Bureau", which indicates a refusal to disclose any information regarding donations.

As of April 20th 2016, csicop.org has a post detailing what goes on behind the scenes from a former employee, Crystal Sanchez. Popoff insists that his water comes from a spring near Chernobyl, which was the site of a devastating nuclear accident. Folklore says that the water from this spring was not polluted by the accident, so people came to drink from it. Popoff, as we know, is filled with complete shit, so instead ofcoming from a magical lake, it came from Costco.
What's more, the "personalized" letters from Popoff were actually just reprints of earlier letters, minus the names. They would attempt to keep these letters secret by suggesting, "Keep this between you and me. Some things are no one else's business." Even worse, Peter doesn't even write the letters. One day, Sanchez counted $30,000 in donations, just from her own stack. Her other 19 colleagues ranked in $600,000. Sanchez decided to quit after some poor young man threatened to commit suicide unless he got to speak to Popoff directly. Popoff refused to answer this call.

https://www.csicop.org/specialartic...he_hidden_story_of_crystal_sanchez_the_peter_

https://archive.is/7HyuT

While we all think televangelists are stupid and annoying, at least most of them actually have good intentions. However, we can all agree that Peter Popoff is a scummy, horrendous, disgusting con man with an insatiable greed, who prays on poor mentally deficient old people who buy into his bullshit.

Thanks for reading my thread dude, please give me constructive critisism for how to make it better. kthxgbye
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I've come across this guy before. There's actually a Steve Martin film based on his faith-healing scam.

Leap_of_faith.jpg

His current scam is called "Peter Popoff Ministries" (http://peterpopoff.org/). A bunch of his tv advertisements are up on youtube:


He inspired a lame character on Stargate SG-1 as well btw.

 
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The Un-Clit said:
Peter Popoff is an exploitive sociopathic piece of shit, but I have to admit i've stayed up late in the past watching his informercials (he dosen't even run new 'prayer shows' but show clips from his old ones, including before he got busted initially.) and straight up admiring the sheer chutzpah of this brazen jackhole. Him and his ugly wife have got it down to a science how to NEVER fucking work for a living, only scam the shit out of gullible fools for a living.

While he is an outragous fraud, I dunno how much tard cum he is going to provide anymore on an ongoing basis as his money making engine is pretty much on autopilot now. All he and his bitch have to do is film the odd intro/middle/end and patch in some old footage, kick back and collect the moolah.
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Thinking about it, you are probably right. However, does it really hurt to spread the word about this guy?
 
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Peter Popoff was among the first of the most loathsome breed of Bible thumpers: the prosperity gospel preacher. I think the most prominent one now is Joel Osteen. Remember back when Hurricane Harvey leveled coastal Texas? He wouldn't open his church up to evacuees until he was shamed into it. They all follow the same playbook, they just vary the pitch. Preaching shouldn't make you rich, I seem to recall that book they're so fond of saying something about the rich and heaven.
 
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If you believe in God, that's great.

If you believe in the healing power of prayer, that's great too.

But to all the people who want to give retards like Popoff money, I want them to open their bibles and ask them to name one instance where Jesus charged money for his miracles.
 
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I've stumbled upon this asshole's infomercials in the early morn, and was floored that it was approved for TV.

"Holy water will pay your bills for you", WTF?! Also, 99% the 'testimonials' were from old black women. Barely a white person in sight.

Glad somebody made a thread on him.

Also, after reading your post, it seems that Steve Martin's character from "Leap of Faith" was at least partially based on a twisted version of him. Very interesting.
 
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Sword Fighter Super said:
"Holy water will pay your bills for you",
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Except in order to do that you need to send him money first. And then he'll keep on sending you stuff asking for more money.

According to these con artists, the only way for you to get money to pay your bills and stuff is to give your money to him. Something about casting your money like loaves of bread on the water and you get your money back a hundred fold.

AnOminous said:
He sort of reminds me of Jim Bakker and his scam apocalypse food buckets, except even more of a scam.
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Pre Crazy Survivalist Preacher Jim Bakker was so amazingly greedy it was funny to see him work. There was a point, not too long before the scandals broke, that he and his drag queen of a wife were selling plaques to put on the "Wall of Faith". It was a little brass plaque with your name engraved on it and it only cost $1000. But he claimed that if you bought one you were guaranteed a spot in heaven.

Pretty odd considering the Catholics back in Marting Luther's time were selling the same thing called "Indulgences". First it was to guarantee your place in heaven. Then every time you gave to the church, another soul was saved from Purgatory. This was one of the things Martin Luther was against and saw it as corruption of the church.

History has an odd way of repeating itself sometime.
 
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Sword Fighter Super said:
I've stumbled upon this asshole's infomercials in the early morn, and was floored that it was approved for TV.
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There are a lot of local stations that will look the other way and let you broadcast all kinds of outlandish shit from 2-5am, as long as you pay them enough. From scam preachers on one side, to softcore porn on the other, and with Chemtrails and UFO conspiracy theorist nuthatches somewhere in the middle. Yes I am an insomniac.
 
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DrJonesHat said:
I seem to recall that book they're so fond of saying something about the rich and heaven.
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Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Of course modern fundamentalist Christians of all sorts tend to ignore that one. Wonder why...
 
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AriGiga said:
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Of course modern fundamentalist Christians of all sorts tend to ignore that one. Wonder why...
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Saturday Night Live made a pretty funny skit about that. Can't get a clip unfortunately, though.
 
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