Guyism » Psychics

Psychic arrested for fraud after making almost $300k from clients

Chris Spags — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:19:25 +0000

Here’s a story I find kind of perplexing…a Denver “psychic” is accused of stealing almost $300,000 from clients. As we’ve taught you before, all psychics are fake. So…how exactly is that theft? Let’s find out!

Nancy Marks, a 54 year-old woman in Lafayette, Colorado, started out giving psychic readings to clients. Somewhere along the line, her business model adapted. Marks allegedly began telling clients that their “money [was] evil” and that she would take it from them so that she could pass the curses onto the money itself.

Marks allegedly told one woman that, according to io9:

For each evil spirit that was supposedly around me, she told me a certain number of thousand of dollars that I needed to bring to her [...] She told me if I didn’t give her more and more money, that something terrible would befall my mother.

Marks was arrested on charges of theft over $20,000 and one count of criminal impersonation. Um…what exactly was she impersonating? A fraudulent psychic? My stars! She’s giving a bad name to all the legitimate psychics out there! You know, the ones that rub their temples vigorously and go, “Hmm…I think you have a…” “A dog?” “Yes! You have a dog. And this dog is occasionally behaving poorly, isn’t he? And it makes you upset?” “How did you know, soothsayer?”

It’s not exactly the Ides of March in the psychic industry, you know. Losing $300,000 to a psychic is like losing $1,000 to a stripper under the assumption at some point she’d confess your love for you. You may have briefly been deceived, but deep down, you had to know that you weren’t going to get what you wanted.

Colorado psychic arrested for telling clients their money was possessed by evil spirits [io9]
Local ‘psychic’ arrested on fraud, theft charges [KDVR]

The 5 most fraudulent psychics of all-time

Jeff Wysaski — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 12:00:35 +0000

Over the years, plenty of frauds have sought to prey on those desperate to connect with lost love ones. Regardless of your beliefs on psychic abilities, the case against mysticism is pretty easily made against these five famous psychics and mediums.

5 John Edward

John Edward rose to prominence as a psychic in the late 1990s. In 1999, he got his own show – Crossing Over with John Edward – in which he claimed to talk with the dead relatives of members in the audience. However, James Randi and other skeptics write Edward off as nothing more than a cold reader. Cold reading is a psychic technique used to gain knowledge about a person based on age, clothing, body language and other physical or verbal cues. For more on cold reading, go here.

Looking at one reading from Edward’s show, Randi reported that the psychic was only correct about three of 23 total claims. Reports from audience members suggest that the majority of these “misses” are edited out before the show airs. Here’s an example of John Edward’s fast-talking cold reading in action:

4 Sylvia Browne

While Sylvia Browne hasn’t been officially outed as a fraud, the evidence is pretty substantial to debunk her “psychic powers.” According to Robert S. Lancaster, creator of the website StopSylvia.com, her track record for correctly predicting events is no better than could be achieved through educated guesses. Additionally, she vehemently declines the use of scientific testing on her powers.

As an example of her fraudulence, there’s the well-known case of Shawn Hornbeck. This poor boy had been kidnapped in 2002. Searching for answers, his parents visited the Montel Williams Show, where Sylvia told them Shawn was dead and went into details about where his body could be found. In 2007, Shawn was found alive. Watch Anderson Cooper discuss the case ad take on Sylvia Browne in this video:

3 Miss Cleo

“Call me now for your free reading.” In the 1990s, it seemed you couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing a commercial for the Psychic Readers Network. The spokesperson for this Network was a Jamaican “shaman” and “psychic” named Miss Cleo. Following numerous lawsuits, the FTC began investigating the PRN on charges of deceptive advertising, billing and collection practices. During these investigations, it was revealed that Miss Cleo was actually a paid actress who didn’t even have a real Jamaican accent. Furthermore, the psychics hired to give readings via phone were found to largely be reading from a script.

Surprisingly (or perhaps not), Miss Cleo is currently working as a spiritual advisor in Ft. Lauderdale. Prices for a one-on-one tarot reading purportedly start around $200.

2 Mina Crandon

Decades before skeptic and magician James Randi, there was Harry Houdini. The most famous magician of all time was also one of the biggest critics and activists against psychics and mediums. After his mother died, Houdini devoted considerable efforts to expose frauds. He also set up a committee that would award a cash prize to anyone who could prove psychic abilities (no one could). Thanks to his knowledge of stage tricks, Houdini debunked numerous psychics and mediums. The most famous was Mina Crandon.

In the 1920s Mina Crandon rose to prominence for her accurate predictions and involved séances. She was so good, that she received endorsements from such notable people as Arthur Conan Doyle. However, Houdini showed how many of her “séance” tricks could be easily replicated. Scientific investigations from other skeptics also severely damage her credibility. Even so, Mina continued to profit from her trickery all the way up until her death in 1941.

1 Uri Geller

Uri Geller claims to have psychic powers (which were given to him by extraterrestrials), specifically psychokinesis and telepathy. For decades, he’s used these “abilities” to bend spoons and speed up or slow down watches. If it sounds like traditional magic tricks, that’s because it is. Professional stage magician and skeptic James Randi has shown how Geller’s feats can be easily replicated through stage magic. Randi has also shown that Geller’s predictions related to sporting events are more often wrong than correct.

In 2007, Geller seemed to own up to the evidence against him, saying “I’ll no longer say that I have supernatural powers. I am an entertainer.” A famous clip of Uri Geller being debunked on Johnny Carson”s Tonight Show is below:

And here’s some more fun stuff we think you’ll enjoy…

Quote of the Day

Chris Spags — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:30:41 +0000

People claiming to have superpowers are idiots. Even more idiotic? . People pretending they can communicate with dogs telepathically. You want to know what the dog said? “Scratch me, I have to crap, give me steak, that Snausages dog is a bad stereotype.” Bam, now give me money.

Judy Garbow is merely hoping to lure a few individuals to the Bridgton Community Center on Saturday for a program offering a peek inside of the minds of animals.

Garbow, 55, of Cumberland is an animal communicator who says she uses telepathy, a form of nonverbal communication, to convey the thoughts or feelings of pets to their owners.

“I work with people and pets, usually companion animals,” said Garbow. “When people call someone like me, they are looking for information that can help their animals. And those issues usually go back to what’s happening in (the animal’s) environment.”

Garbow said that if there is stress, depression, anxiety or sickness in a home, animals will reflect that in their behavior.

“(Animals) are feeling beings that will do anything to show love, even to save your life if necessary,” said Garbow. “They want to help, but they can’t speak.”

Garbow, a former dental assistant, began practicing “energy work” 20 years ago. She owns the business Prisms on Main Street in Yarmouth, sharing office space with a veterinarian who specializes in holistic practices, chiropractic work and nutrition.

“I have had an interest in health, nutrition and alternative (forms of health care) all my life,” said Garbow. “I discovered that I was intuitive in animal communication and opened up to it really quickly. It’s not something you just walk into. It’s something you become over time.”

[via]

Fraudulent psychics and phone companies screwing you on text messages

Chris Spags — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:12:40 +0000

So I hope Jesus’s birthday was wonderful for you all. It was less so for me because, after buying seemingly 700 million gifts, I’m now giving handjobs on the street corner for reasonable rates. Tis the season!

Psychic fails at..psychic..ness

Pro tip: Don’t be specific with your cold reading guesses when you’re a ugly old lady pretending to be a psychic.

This is totally why I failed at being a psychic too. I’d go to do a reading where I’m in touch with the dead and then I’d be like, “I bet your husband’s death was a tragic one…WAS IT MARSHMALLOWS? DID HE DIE IN A VAT OF MARSHMALLOWS? I BET IT WAS MARSHMALLOWS.” Sure, it was a correct guess one out of the first ten thousand times, but it didn’t do much for my psychic street cred.

Phone companies f’ing you on text messages

It may be a shocker to learn that major corporations are f’ing you everywhere you go. Well, add another confirmation on that fact to the list: It costs you .20 for every text you send. It costs cell providers approximately 0 dollars. And 0 cents.

Telcos are ripping you off. If you are surprised by this, you may also be interested in some prime real estate I have for sale. It’s on the Moon.

But just because we all know that we are being scammed doesn’t make the manner of the sting any less interesting. A piece in the New York Times goes into some detail on the cost of text messages to the cell carriers and concludes that it is close to zero. An SMS doesn’t even take any bandwidth away from the regular channels which carry calls:

That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

I never thought this would be possible but, with this news, apparently the text photos I send women of my penis are somehow worth less than I had originally valuated them at. The cost-benefit analysis of this really makes me realize that, not only is my business model foolish, but frankly, it’ll never be profitable. But sometimes you have to take a hit financially to get your message out there. Really, it’s the closest thing to charity that I do.