How To Identify a Fishy Psychic

Now, on the topic of common psychic scams, that is, getting scammed by so-called, or fake, psychics, I do indeed have a lot to say! Just because you may have been scammed before by a supposed psychic, that does not make all psychics fake, nor does it mean that all psychics are dishonest. Aren’t there also false lawyers, pseudo doctors and shady accountants out there?

Psychic Readers are a Profession Like Any Other

However, in the psychic profession just as in any other, some individuals are more honest than others. Some professionals provide better quality services than others. Some are more reliable, trustworthy and consistent.

Just as I have been to good hairdressers and bad ones, so it is also the case with psychic readers.

In another article I detailed a few examples of good, bad and superlative psychic readers.

Now I’m going to explain a few of the things to watch out for in order to detect a fish. A fishy psychic reader, that is. Not Nemo (who is fishy too, but in a good way.)

Signs of a Fish

Well, firstly, as I commented in another article on psychic readers, I myself would never phone in to a psychic hotline.

Not to say that all psychic hotlines are fraudulent or that all psychic readers are cons. In fact once someone even offered me a job as a phone-in psychic! (I didn’t accept.)

However, I won’t deny that in general I do consider psychic hotlines a hotbed of psychic scams. (But I am open to the possibility of being pleasantly surprised.)

As stated, I once had an acquaintance who went to work for a Tarot hotline, and he confided his insider’s view about how that works to me.

To begin with, this person doesn’t even know how to read the Tarot! He just needed a job.

Now, I understand the pressing circumstances which led him to accept work doing something he knew nothing about. He had a wife, a baby, and no one in the family was earning any money. Sending out curriculums wasn’t bringing him any sort of luck, no one would hire him. At least at the psychic hotline, he was bringing in something so he could support his family.

His job was to keep people talking for over 20 minutes, because the money from the first 20 minutes of the call went into his boss’s pockets. He learned how to use those first 20 minutes to milk desperate people for information about themselves in order to invent a plausible Tarot reading for them. Desperate people are desperate to tell you all their problems.

Desperate People

Let me elaborate a bit about that. If you are a fake psychic – like my acquaintance – and your aim is to bluster people and dig around a bit for some private, secret information, so that you may invent a believable reading for your client, well, there are techniques for doing that.

So I would advise you that if you should happen book a reading with a psychic, and this person starts carrying out the actions which I will describe shortly, do walk away as fast as possible without paying. You are probably being set up for a psychic scam.

I’d like to add, however, that a little bit of bantering and small talk at the beginning of a session is normal. One of the coolest psychic readers I know also starts off her readings with a bit of small talk.

She will also ask her clients if they have any specific questions or problems that they would like to address. This is NOT milking a desperate client for privileged information.

If your favourite dentist or massage therapist were to begin your treatment by asking about your life, your family and your health, would you assume that this person was out to scam you?

Personal and Intimate Details

A psychic scam is carried out quite differently. The fake psychic may try to “bait” you. They may say things (which may in fact have no relevance to you at all) like, “So, have you had a break-up recently? Do you tend to feel guilty? Do you feel unloved, and like no matter what you do you just can’t seem to find Mr./Mrs. Right?”

You know, personal, quite intimate details about your life and your feelings.

If faced with negative responses, the psychic scammer will continue fishing: “So, do you feel like people are trampling all over you all the time? Do you have some sort of addictive behaviour you would like to address here?”

And so on and so forth, until the anguished client finally pours out their tale.

As I mentioned earlier, desperate clients are desperate to tell you all their woes. If you are a desperate client, it will probably not take the person carrying out this psychic scam a very long time to discover your well-guarded, secret troubles.

Armed with this information, the deceptive non-professional can then elaborate all sorts of fake readings in order to satisfy you and help you feel better. So beware if the so-called professional gives you vague, this-could-apply-to-anyone types of information. Such behaviour could well indicate a psychic scam.

Here are some examples of vague information that also serves to satisfy your longing for a satisfactory and happy ending:

Do you have amorous issues, no man/woman is willing to look at you? False psychic may then pronounce: “A new love interest will be waiting around the corner for you. This person will be tall, dark and handsome/a gorgeous, curvaceous blonde.”

In fact I received a reading once years ago from a Gypsy palmistry reader who told me precisely that. Well, as a single mom, I’m still waiting for Mr. Right to fly in through the window!

So, maybe your problem is financial? For your psychic scam professional, that is no problem either, because: “A major promotion for you is lurking around in the upper échelons of your company, be patient and before long your boss will break the big news to you.”

100% Accuracy Guaranteed

Another sign which causes the red flags to light up very quickly for me, is when a practitioner promises me “100% accurate information”. I see this all the time on advertisements and psychic hotlines.

When your chosen non-professional guarantees that their readings are “always” correct and accurate, and makes pompous claims that they consistently hit the nail straight on 100% of the time, run, don’t walk, as fast as possible in the opposite direction.

Not only does this clearly indicate a psychic scam, it also betrays that the fake professional does not even know what they are talking about.

Have you ever met a carpenter who always hits the nail square in the middle 100% of the time? Neither have I. Now, a good carpenter probably very rarely misses his mark. He’s not going to be the one leaping about in agony because he just hit his thumb.

However, it is still inevitable that every once in a while he may miss the nail. Perhaps he won’t hit his thumb, but he may bang on something else.

The best psychic reading I have ever received, from one of my favourite cool psychic readers, was still not 100% accurate. From the way I see it, this person presented me with one very small inaccuracy. However it was of no importance to me, and it didn’t affect the reading, nor my evaluation of the reader, in the slightest.

On the contrary, the fact that he did commit one very slight error, only indicates to me all the more strongly that this person is indeed the real deal!

No psychic scam there!

Note, however, that I do use the term a “very slight error”. I didn’t say that 60% of all his information was way off the mark.

In order to carry out the Soul Realignment psychic reading which this excellent practitioner did for me, he didn’t require the slightest speck of information from me about my personal life before beginning the reading. All I needed to provide him with was my full name and date and place of birth. That was all the personal data that he required from me.

So, as you can see, another mark of the good psychic reader, one who is definitely not out there performing psychic scams, is that the professional ask as little information about you as possible. If he is genuine he will not need to know a whole lot about you. He will be able to discover your needs for himself, when he carries out his reading.

A Little Small Talk is Normal, Natural, and Serves to Break the Ice

Although, as I mentioned before, a little bit of small talk does not indicate dishonesty.

I myself like to situate myself a bit when initiating contact with a person I have never met before. I prefer to ascertain some basic facts about the client, such as whether they are working, if they have family or are in a relationship.

However, it isn’t in the least bit necessary for the client to volunteer any information at all about the state of their relationships. That is, for example, whether they have a great time with their partner or if, on the other hand, the two of them are constantly fighting.

If there is any relationship angst between them, this information will be revealed naturally to me in the course of the reading.

The C-U-R-S-E, Eek!!

One of the greatest psychic scams of all time which are out there, and which really inflames me, is the uncouth individual who makes some horrible, dire pronouncement – and then promises you that HE (or she) is absolutely THE ONLY professional out there who exists in the world who can help you.

One very common example: the curse!

In a future article I plan to write about curses. However, for the moment, suffice it to say that curses are very rare. Or at least terrible, life-threatening ones are. It would be highly unlikely that you, of all people, should happen to be one of the few countable individuals dramatically affected by such a phenomenon.

And even in the case that you should indeed be the victim of something so disagreeable, I can assure you that it will not cost you $5000, nor that you carry out any strange or bizarre feats of great daring, in order to rid yourself of said curse.

In fact, in the extremely unlikely case that you are indeed agonizing under the effects of a curse, it can be very quickly and easily removed.

I will talk about that in a future article, but for the moment, I would just like to reassure you that the chances of you living under the shadow of a dire malediction are most definitely very remote.

Of course there are another hundred ways to distinguish a psychic scam from the honest reading. If you are open to the possibility that some psychic readers are honest, decent and ethical, and use your most down-to-earth, non-woo-woo common sense, you should most likely be able to resist any attempts at a psychic scam.