Gypsies sound exotic, but when they’re in Altadena, watch out for the scams. This item in from Carolyn Seitz:
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is the beginning of summer and true to their history, the gypsies appear to be back in our area.
I watched them in the Ralph’s parking lot at Hastings Ranch as they blocked a woman’s car in a parking space and were trying to persuade her that they could fix the big dent in her rear bumper and the dent in her front bumper as well as some minor scratches – for only $200.
She said not today. No money. They said, no problem, we’ll follow you to your ATM, but we’re only here today and the price is only good today.
I got her attention as I headed in her direction (I was headed in that direction anyway) and she told them no again. They continued to try to work her. By the time I walked up, the guy out of the car headed back to the car he arrived in and they left.
They’d followed her around the parking lot until they finally cornered her.
Watch out.
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I had my own experience a few years ago with a car repair scam over in La Canada. Same kind of deal, but not as aggressive. Here is some background on gypsies that Carolyn found. Also, Google Gypsies in America and you’ll learn a lot about their specialties and origin.
Carolyn says:
They’ve historically run a few different scams when they get here and this is about the time of the year they show up – sometimes to fix your dents and scratches. That “fix” will last until the first rain.
They prey on the elderly – offering to fix roof leaks, repave driveways, do home improvements, or fix your car.
They always convey urgency – you have to take their offer right then or the price won’t be the same.
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I remembered a story a while back involving a group that started with a T who did a housepainting scam. Carolyn dug it up:
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about where the gypsies that show up here every summer come from. I wish I knew.
I just googled gypsy scams southern California and got a mixed bag of “stuff”. Judd MacIlvain did a story on them in 2002, announcing their arrival in town.
Not all gypsies are crooks or scam artists. He described a group from the midwest – The Irish Travelers, from Oklahoma and Arkansas.
In 2006, they hit Palos Verdes pretty hard with scams about retaining walls, and then gangs of tree trimmers who would surprise people in their backyards, distract them and then lock them out of their back doors, leaving their front doors unlocked, having stolen personal property.
I think I found your T___ in an article from September 2002 – here it is . . .
DALLAS (AP) _ The tearful testimonial Madelyne Gorman Toogood gave in front of glaring TV cameras after she was videotaped beating her daughter was starkly uncharacteristic of the reclusive, media-shy Irish Travelers culture to which she belongs, experts say. Toogood, who was caught beating her 4-year-old daughter, Martha, in a department store parking lot, said she is a member of the clannish, nomadic culture of Irish descendants, most of whom came to the United States as refugees during the potato famine in the 1840s. “By nature, they’re very reclusive people,” said Joe Livingston, a South Carolina state investigator who has been tracking Travelers for nearly two decades. “They tend to shy away from publicity.”
Some law enforcement experts who have studied the culture paint it as a secret society, fond of material wealth evidenced by gaudy jewelry and new vehicles. Police often associate Travelers with scams involving fraudulent home repair that target the elderly. They tend to use aliases, carry bogus identification cards, and avoid contact with non-Travelers, whom they call “country folk,” authorities said.
But professors and academics said the reclusiveness is a defense mechanism against stereotypes and the ancient persecution that has haunted nomadic peoples throughout history. Travelers, who may be Irish, English, or Scottish, have no more criminals among them than any other ethnic culture, experts said. “If there were, they could not sustain their living,” said Larry Otway, who began studying Irish Travelers in 1977 and has worked as a paralegal and adviser on court cases involving Scottish travelers. What the clans in the culture do share, Otway said, is a nomadic lifestyle, a language called “Scelta” with roots in Gaelic and Romani, an almost “pathologic” devotion to Catholicism, and an anti-bureaucratic form of self government that he describes as a “consensus democracy.”
The largest Traveler settlement is a group of 3,000 in Murphy Village, S.C., experts said. Toogood is believed to belong to the Greenhorn Carrolls, a Traveler group in the Fort Worth area. Estimates of the U.S. Traveler population vary from 20,000 to 100,000. Ian F. Hancock, a professor at the University of Texas who wrote the Irish Travelers entry for the Encyclopedia of the South, said a distraught Toogood called him Thursday seeking advice. “She was scared to turn herself in because she knows very well how the police feel about the Irish Travelers,” said Hancock, who has a reputation as a sympathizer of the group. “She didn’t think she’d get a fair shake and she knew she’d been rough with the child.”
Toogood, who also has two young sons, remains free on a $5,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court Oct. 7. If convicted, she faces up to three years in prison. She was scheduled to have a 90-minute supervised meeting with her daughter on Tuesday but the child, who is in foster care, was sick. An attorney for the state said Toogood would be allowed to see Martha on Wednesday if the girl has recovered from the flu.
Hancock and other academics said they believe Toogood’s case has been sensationalized by the media because of her ethnicity. “As bad as what she did, and it’s inexcusable, I still think there’s an awful lot of profiling going on,” Hancock said. “Very much is being made of her ethnic background. If she were German American or Italian American, would that even be an issue?”
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So there you have it. The gypsies do move around Europe and in France. Friends there say they drive around in Mercedes Benz cars and hunt the local wildlife on anyone’s land without permission among other transgressions. I’m not bringing this up to spread fear and hatred, just awareness like I would if there were any scam going on. In fact, it’s odd to hear about gypsies here, we just don’t think about them. I’m sure this will bring up a lot of discussion. What do you think?
writerdeb