How much of The Riches was true (about Travellers)?

[IGBT]

We finished up watching the second season of The Riches (awesome performance by Minnie Driver btw) and I am curious if some of the stuff in the show was taken from real world examples.<br /><br />Do you ever meet up with RV clans?&nbsp; Do they call non Travellers "buffers"?<br /><br />

 

[rvwandering]

&nbsp;I've never seen the show but I got curious about the different between Irish travelers and Romani people a few years ago and did a little internet searching. Very interesting reading. Here are a few short articles if you are interested - <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/for-roma-life-in-us-has-challenges-119394819/163156.html">http://www.voanews.com/content/for-roma-life-in-us-has-challenges-119394819/163156.html</a><br /><a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003381,00.html"><br />http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003381,00.html</a><br /><br />&nbsp;We had a funny meeting with a group Roma men ( who identified themselves to us as Gypsies ) which was part of the reason for my curiosity. We were in Washington state getting a small class C custom built and were planning on selling the class C that we had at the time. A man saw us driving along the street (no for sale sign on it) and asked if we wanted to sell it. We took his information and told him that we would get back to him when the new RV was finished. This took quite a while and he called us several times still wanting to buy it. When the new one was finally done we called him and he came back with a very low price that we didn't accept. An ad in Craig's list got another eager buyer who looked at it and offered us $6,500 , a fair price. We made arrangements to meet in a casino lot the next day for the final exchange of money for the motorhome&nbsp; because it was an easy place for us to have both the old and new motorhome. Very soon after we pulled into the lot that same evening a couple of very nice SUVs pulled up beside us and about six guys got out and wanted to buy the old motorhome (still no for sale sign). When we said that we had sold it they asked how much and then raised the price that they would pay to $10,000. We declined because we had already promised the<br />other man that we would sell it to him. When the oldest man of the group(who stayed in his car ) found that we were going to honor our earier agreement he looked at Tony and said " You must be stupid!" LOL We had quite a hard time convincing them that we won't sell it to them.<br /><br />&nbsp;In hindsight we think that all of the men were Roma because many Roma make money buying and selling vehicles. The group of men told us that they had just come from buying cars in Portland. Our motorhome was unusual because it was four wheel drive and could be sold for more than we were asking if the mileage had been less. About a year later we spotted it on Craigs list with a $14,000 price and 60,000 miles on the odometer instead of the original 320,000.

 

[IGBT]

Excellent story!&nbsp; I would have been a little nervous having 6 guys show up, but I guess you guys were in a public place.&nbsp; I have never seen these groups in WA state.<br /><br />We were in Ireland for a few months earlier this year and I did see a group of RVs and tents along one country road outside&nbsp;Cork&nbsp;(about 20 total).&nbsp; Perhaps this was a Irish traveler group.&nbsp; They were pretty spread out right next to the road...doubt officials in the USA would have let them stay.