2022 In Psychics Scamming People Out Of Lots And Lots Of Money

For the love of everything, do not give these people your money.

When one is going through a difficult time in life — the loss of a loved one, romance issues, financial issues, etc. — it can be tempting to believe the problem can be solved by magic. Literal magic, sometimes. Thus, there are thousands and thousands of people across the country and on the internet waiting to take advantage of that impulse in order to line their own pockets. And unlike professionals of literally any other kind, they are not required to produce any actual results because they are "for entertainment purposes only."

How fabulously entertaining it is for people to be told they need to cough up hundreds or thousands (or even millions) of dollars to end a "family curse" I'm not so sure — but as a polite reminder to definitely not ever do that, here are some of the scammiest psychics this year, mostly courtesy of the BBB's Scamtracker.

"Voted #1 Psychic"

It's not clear what election this Instagram psychic won, but they managed to con $17,695 out of someone — which they probably spent on buying their 84K Instagram followers (with only 26 posts! Impressive!).

Via Scamtracker:  

Psychic took advantage of my desperation and vulnerability after a breakup and claimed my soul and significant other soul needed healing from negative karma. Psychic also promised to help me out of depression. Psychic kept asking for money, making it seem like it was urgent, needing to buy more “energy.” Psychic made up believable stories about my significant other’s past and made me feel my life would be ruined if I did not pay her money to do all the work so I could live a happy life. It has dragged on, psychic promised I would get most of my money back once special materials were returned and the “work was finalized,” that it was just “borrowed.” Still have not received money back and barely get responses. Keeps giving me the run around and dragging things on, no concrete answers, avoidance of returning materials to give me most of my money back.

I don't know much about psychic stuff, but I can't quite see how that kind of "energy" would cost money. Does it not come from the ether or The Powers That Be?

Monica, Hands of Light

This person, who says they were in a vulnerable state at the time, ended up spending $700 so some lady named Monica could "cleanse" them and then not remove a curse she said someone put on them. Sadly, the only thing truly cursed was their Instagram feed .

Via Scamtracker:  

  She said that lifting this curse, will indeed make my life better in all aspects. The next day she had messaged me asking how I was and I was busy and didn't respond right now. I was really reluctant on paying more and she said okay well I take my work very seriously and have lots of other clients. "I can't force you to want to make your life better" - that guilted me so much and she made me feel extremely bad for doubting her abilities. So I apologized and she said she would be with me every step of the way and wouldn't leave my side. So I paid it. It has been three days and I haven't heard from her since.

Yeah, don't give hundreds of dollars to people on Instagram who tell you that you are cursed?

Treasure Island? More like ... opposite of that.

Patricia Miller, South Beach Psychic, reportedly approached someone visiting Treasure Island in Miami to offer a psychic reading for the extremely normal price of $500, informing them that she is "licensed in five states." Because they give out licenses to psychics. This person thought to themselves, "Sure, why not? I could buy a whole entire Gucci scarf for that much, but I'm going to instead give it to this random lady hanging around telling me she has magic powers."

Via Scamtracker:  

She stated that was enough for her services and that she would need to collect some materials to finish her work. We agree to meet the next morning at 10 AM to finish. She then stated that all I need to do was provide her a tip. [...] She then informed me we needed to perform a ceremony to complete the service. If I could get a room to perfom [sic] the ceremony and to not worry that all the money I was going to use would be given back to me. That since I was such a good person she was going to do her work pro-bono. She stated she was going to give me half back of the 500 and that all I needed to do was give her a tip. [...] She then informed me it was a money ritual I needed to perfom [sic]. And that we needed to collect money from my account and all the cash that I had on me. She kept assuring me not to worry none of that money was going to be used for anything. That all I would need to do is to put the money in an envelope, in my right shoe and in my left shoe. Place gift cards and money on the bed. That once the ceremony was done I'd have all that money back. We then collected my money from atms.

Boy does that ever seem legit! Who would ever guess what happened next?

We then finished collecting the last of the materials needed at Walgreens. We returned to Treasure island to finish her service. Once in the room she kept pushing for me to get more money out and that's when I started to become uncomfortable and started to suspect it was a scam. I told her I was becoming uncomfortable. She then stated she just needed to run downstairs to get eggs to finish and that she'd be right back. She stole all the money from the room totaling $3800 and never returned.

And the shoes? Did she steal the shoes?

You will be shocked to find that although Patricia said that she regularly performed psychic shows at the Bellagio, she does not in fact do that.

Her actual name is Samantha Stevens? Really? Samantha Stevens?

While most "psychics" will be able to go on conning people forever with little to no consequences, in mid-December a woman named Samantha Stevens and her partner (not named Darren) were sentenced to federal prison for scamming a woman out of three million dollars over the course of several years.

Via ABC:  

According to court documents, Stevens was portraying herself as a psychic and fortune teller in 2012 when she met a victim in Miami. Stevens gained the victim’s trust and convinced her that a curse had been placed on her and her family. Stevens claimed she needed to perform rituals on large sums of money in order to lift the curse. The victim was told that failing to do so would result in harm to her and her family, prosecutors said.

Stevens will also be required to pay over $3 million in restitution to the victim, which does seem unlikely to happen given that she already spent all of the money on "vehicles, property and casino gambling." It is not clear what will happen to little Tabitha.

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