How to spot a psychic scam

The most expensive psychic scams run to tens of thousands of pounds, and trading-standards bodies and the courts have seen plenty of them. The pattern barely changes. It starts with a cheap reading at a fair or online. Then comes the curse: a darkness sitting on the family, a child supposedly in danger, and a long programme of cleansing work that only this reader can perform. Each session reveals a new layer. Each layer costs more. The invented threat to someone they love is the hook that keeps a person paying long after a quieter part of them knows better.

That is the shape of the con, and it almost always follows the same script. Learn the script and you can spot it from the door.

The curse-removal con, step by step

It opens cheap or free. A taster reading, a low introductory rate, something to get you in conversation and build a little trust.

Then a problem appears that you didn’t bring. A curse. Dark energy. A spirit attachment. Bad luck deliberately placed on you, often by a jealous person they may even name. You cannot check any of this. That is the entire point; the problem lives in a place no one can inspect.

The fear gets personalised. It moves from you to the people you’d do anything for. A child, a partner, a parent is said to be at risk. This is deliberate. It bypasses the part of your brain that would balk at spending money on yourself.

Then comes the cure, and it is never a single payment. It’s a candle that must be bought, then blessed, then re-blessed. A crystal that must be ordered. A series of sessions, each one unlocking the next. The cost climbs, and quitting partway is framed as leaving the danger half-removed. Sunk cost does the rest.

Real spiritual practice does not run like this. Nobody who genuinely wishes you well manufactures a threat to your children and then bills you to make it go away.

The red flags, plainly

Watch for any reader who tells you that you are cursed, hexed, or carrying dark energy that they alone can remove. Watch for pressure and urgency, the sense that something terrible happens if you don’t act tonight. Watch for escalating fees, vague work you can’t verify, and a refusal to give a clear price up front.

Be wary of guaranteed outcomes. “I will bring your ex back,” “I guarantee the job,” “money is coming by Friday.” No honest reader promises results, because no one can.

And be careful with the channels these things travel on now. Cold approaches by DM or text claiming the spirits flagged your name. Apps and premium phone lines that bill by the minute and train the reader to keep you talking. A free first reading that turns into a relentless funnel toward paid removal work. The medium changes; the trick is the same one the fairground grifter ran a century ago.

Protecting yourself and your money

Decide your limit before you sit down, and treat a reading as a one-off purchase, not an open tab. A fair reader states a flat fee and is comfortable with you walking away.

Never pay to have a curse lifted, full stop. If those words come out of a reader’s mouth, the reading is over. Don’t be talked into a second payment to protect the first.

If you’ve already paid, stop now, whatever they threaten. Keep every message and receipt. Report it to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or at actionfraud.police.uk, and ring your bank, because card payments may be recoverable under chargeback or section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. There is no shame in being caught by this. These people are practised, and the curse script is engineered to switch off exactly the judgement that would normally save you.

A good reading should leave you steadier and a little clearer, lighter in the head if not the wallet. If you instead leave frightened, hooked, and reaching for your card again, that wasn’t a reading. It was a robbery with candles.