More psychic fraud

It seems that South Florida is a hotbed of psychic misadventures. Recently, we wrote here about a Fort Lauderdale-based Rom family and their methods of scamming unwitting clients, including a bestselling romance writer, who was duped out of millions.

Now comes a new story of a psychic taking advantage of a vulnerable woman, caught up in a series of negative events in her life, including the death of her mother and the breakup of a relationship. In her case, money was not an issue – at least not initially. She had inherited $100,000 from her mother, money that she would soon lose to a 23-year-old psychic, named Stephanie Thompson.

Probably the young psychic thought ‘easy come, easy go,’ regarding the inheritance. Once she knew about it, she told the unwitting woman, who remains unnamed, that the money was cursed and needed to be cleansed. Amazingly, the ‘victim’ got the cash out of the bank and turned it over to the psychic. I put victim in single-quotes because really there are no victims, only people playing roles.

In this case, the woman even admits that she knew better, that she was aware of fraudulent psychics operating in South Florida when she walked into the Psychic Boutique on U.S. 1 in Boca Raton. But she says she was so caught up in her travails that she thought maybe she was cursed.

Apparently, she initially thought she would pay $50 for a psychic reading, but was told she needed to pay $2,000 to determine the cause of the ‘negative energy’ around her. The price grew to more than $20,000 after the psychic said she meditated and discovered the woman was cursed. Thompson even told the woman that she might get cancer just like her mother if she didn’t get the inherited money cleansed. Supposedly, she would get it back after the ritual.

But that didn’t happen, as the woman should’ve known. Does the money ever get returned in these ‘money laundering’ schemes? The woman says: “In my logical mind, I probably would have said, ‘Get the heck out of here, you’re crazy. But I was distraught. I had gone through a string of very difficult things. And you think, maybe I am cursed. Maybe there is something going on here.”

Indeed there was. She was about to lose $100,000. Actually, when you think about it, it turns out that money was cursed and both women would pay the price. The so-called victim lost her inheritance and Stephanie Thompson lost all the money in a casino – so she says – and was arrested and is facing a prison sentence when it comes to trial. That would be a double-trickster synchronicity. You think that money is cursed…just watch what happens.

Another synchronicity occurred when the woman went to the police. She was reporting the misdeed to a detective when Thompson called her and said that she could get her about $75,000 back. So they agreed to meet outside a CVS in Boca and the cop came along. When questioned by the detective, Thompson admitted she had lost it all at a casino.

Years ago, I used to be annoyed when newspapers, such as the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel where this story appeared, featured these psychic scams on their front page. It seemed an attempt to show that all psychics were frauds, that there was no such things as psychic abilities. I no longer think that way. The reason people get caught up in these scams is that there are indeed people who can foresee events, who can read you as if they’ve known you all their lives, some who can even heal. But there are the scammers, and some of these people no doubt also have talents. It usually takes at least one good psychic hit to hook a potential victim.

We’ve encountered such psychics over the years. For us, it has been people who attempted to psychically manipulate us into writing their books or who wanted some control or influence over a part of our lives. That was the case in one instance a few years ago when a psychic told Trish that she was in contact with Trish’s deceased mother. A good ploy, but Trish didn’t buy it. She knew her mother too well. Nothing the psychic said provided any proof that she was in contact with her mother.

There can be a fine line between a good psychic reading and one intent on manipulating and altering a person’s actions. Then there are the Stephenie Thompsons who step way over the line into the world of fortunetelling fraud and make front-page headlines for their criminal behavior.