Haunted Collector
| Can such things be? |
| The Twilight Zone |
Haunted Collector is an American reality television series on the Syfy channel with a truly astounding premise. A conman named John Zaffis travels around stealing valuables from vulnerable people. How does he do it? He simply tells people their valuable antiques are haunted and need to be placed in his care so they will not give off any more evil vibrations. The astounding part is that (a) people let him do this, and (b) it is perfectly legal. At least for the moment.[1]
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[edit] How the scam works (or) a typical episode
The producers identify people who think their home is being haunted. Zaffis sends in his team to investigate. After waving around some electronic gizmos they convince the residents that their place is officially haunted, is infested by demons, or is a portal to Hell. Zaffis arrives, points to some valuable item and claims that it is connected to some tragic historical event, and if he removes it from the house, the ghosts will go away. To seal the deal, he cites some "research" his team did at the local library which undoubtedly proves that something paranormal is afoot. For example, in one house Zaffis scored an engraved pocket watch which dated from the late eighteenth century. KA-CHING! How did he prove the watch had bad mojo? According to town records, the couple who lived there in those days got a...divorce. Oh yes, bad vibrations indeed! Much to Zaffis's disappointment, the scam doesn't always work; once, Zaffis had his eye on a valuable antique billiards set. Big money. But the owner wouldn't part with it, even after Zaffis told him the property once belonged to a...sanitarium (Apparently, Zaffis believes that mental illness is caused by demons.)[2]
Over the course of 18 episodes, Zaffis has walked away with piles of loot, including Civil War items, Victorian jewelry, antique firearms, and Native American artifacts. Zaffis would take the shirt off your back if he could arrange it. Thenewsjunkie.com sums it up quite nicely:[3]
"Not since John Edward’s Crossing Over has there been a show so ridiculous on television. If the "Haunted Collector" was any kind of decent man, he’d (at the very least) pay a fair price for these items and quit using fear to fill his coffers"
[edit] Zaffis
Zaffis is the nephew of Ed and Lorraine Warren, self-styled demonologists who glommed onto the "Amityville Horror" story and turned it into their own personal cash cow. Zaffis's bio includes the typical convincer used by ghost hunters, con artists and carnies to sucker the rubes. He claims he was a hardened skeptic up until he saw the ghost of his grandfather floating around his bedroom. His grandmother died a few days later, which everyone knows is proof positive that ghosts are real. Zaffis was a regular on the paranormal TV show circuit for at least a dozen years until he hit the scam-tastic jackpot with Haunted Collector.[4][5] Zaffis says he has over 1000 "haunted" objects taken from people's homes and stored in glass or plastic cases "so the energy can't get out." He maintains he can't burn, break, destroy or trash anything because it would "release the energy" and that would be "very bad."[6]
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ http://thenewsjunkie.com/haunted-collector-steals-valuables-from-vulnerable-people Haunted Collector Steals Valuables From Vulnerable People
- ↑ http://www.syfy.com/hauntedcollector/episodes SyFy - The Haunted Collector - Episodes
- ↑ http://thenewsjunkie.com/haunted-collector-steals-valuables-from-vulnerable-people Haunted Collector Steals Valuables From Vulnerable People
- ↑ http://www.whoislog.info/profile/john-zaffis.html John Zaffis bio
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1846351/ John Zaffis, imdb.com
- ↑ http://www.weirld.com/Paranormal/Ghosts-and-Hauntings/Interview-with-SyFy-s-Haunted-Collector-John-Zaffis.html