In the end you're buying something that doesn't exist. If you want to believe it exists that's fine. Complaining that you bought magic and someone sold you fake magic though? C'mon now. The fake predictions were just as real as the real ones would be.
Let's say I believe in unicorns. Is it legal to then glue a horn on a horse and sell it to me as a "unicorn"?
You can't say "Well I thought I was getting REAL magic", because that doesn't exist. You can absolutely say "Well I thought I was getting a REAL car", because it's expected to buy a car, and cars exist.
And Maria Duval exists, so it's possible that a bespoke letter from her to you could exist, even if you don't believe the contents.
Feels more like saying — if you went to Disneyland & bought a ticket for "Get your photo taken with Mickey Mouse: $20", would you accept a photo with any random person instead because "of course you can't get a photo with Mickey Mouse, he doesn't exist"?
"Buying magic from Maria Duval" changes it to fraud assuming that Maria Duval was not involved. Where things become slightly more tricky is that Maria Duval sold the rights to her name to the scam operators before they did the scam.
So now the analogy is maybe "you paid for an autograph from Mickey Mouse, but Joe Schmo signed it instead (you didn't find out until later). Disney sold the rights for Joe Schmo to use the name Mickey Mouse in autographs."
Mickey Mouse as a character does exist btw, as a point that doesn't matter much.
But I wouldn't be surprised if you could get into legal trouble selling autograph books that you signed yourself, presenting them as being collector's items from Disney.
But really, the thing you'd be making is functionally identical to what you'd get at the park - it's a fictional character's signature, drawn by a person trained in making that signature.
Right, I don't think someone selling something under licence is a problem/fraud, but if it's a key part of the "product" that you're buying is the provenance as well as the content, then that's what makes it fraud. From the article:
> Some correspondence directed recipients to purchase supposedly supernatural objects, while others urged them to use provided green envelopes to mail personal items—family photographs, palm prints, locks of hair—against a promise that the psychic would use them to conduct personalized rituals. “Once this envelope has been sealed, it may be opened ONLY by me,” read one letter that included Duval’s photocopied signature.
You're buying a service where you send in a personal item, it will only be opened by Duval and she'll conduct a personalised reading. Actually, your personal item is getting binned & you're getting a templated response from someone else (if you get any response at all).
Disney Corporation is fine to sell photos of Mickey Mouse with Walt Disney's signature on it or to licence Joe Schmo to do it for them.
But if they said "Original preparatory sketch by Walt Disney, signed by the man himself" and sold it for $10k and it turns out it's a reproduction signed by Joe Schmo, then that's a problem.