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Five Outrageous Psychic Scams 85

Greed Report: They Saw

Them Coming: Five

Outrageous Psychic Scams

Scott Cohn

In a complicated, often frustrating world,
wouldn't it be nice if you knew someone out
there who had the answers? Someone who could
guide you to happiness, wealth or romance,
reunite you with a lost loved one, or tell you
what might happen next week or next year?
How much would you be willing to pay if you
truly—sincerely—believed you could harness
that kind of power?
Throughout history, people have paid
untold billions to biblical prophets and
clairvoyant crime solvers, even to market
prognosticators who claim they can pick stocks
by reading the stars. For those of us who remain
other end of the line was not TV's Miss Cleo— Tobias died of natural causes, his wife was
skeptical, there are actually organizations that
who in fact was an actress and playwright from cleared, and the estate case was quietly settled
claim to promote and enforce ethical standards
Los Angeles—but one of dozens of contract out of court. Billy Ash was not charged.
among psychics.
"readers" who got paid based on how long they
At the top of its 8-point code of ethics,
could keep a caller on the line. Curses, foiled again
the Australia-based International Psychics
The Federal Trade Commission got the
Association says its members "should give
operation shut down in 2002 after suing the One of the oldest tricks in the psychic scam
advice as responsibly and accurately as
owners for multiple counts of unfair trading playbook is the offer to remove bad luck or
possible."
practices. Without admitting guilt, the owners
"Our late founder, Simon Turnbull, reverse a curse. Rose Marks of Fort Lauderdale,
agreed to forgive $500 million in phone charges
always said a reading should cost the same as a Florida was so good at it that she managed to
and pay a $5 million penalty to the FTC.
good haircut, and that does tend to be a fair con best-selling novelist Jude Deveraux out of
guide," spokeswoman Leela Williams said in an millions of dollars over a 20-year period.
Ask Billy In fact, Marks was the matriarch of a
e-mail to American Greed.
But, she notes, "Not all psychics are family of supposed psychics accused in 2011 of
members of our association or any similar The mysterious 2007 death of hedge fund scamming hundreds of clients out of
group." manager and frequent CNBC guest Seth Tobias approximately $40 million.
That's almost certainly true of some of at the age of 44 was shocking in its own right. The fraud targeted people when they
the most notorious crooked clairvoyants in But the battle over his estate would turn into a were most vulnerable. For Deveraux, it began
history. They include a storefront psychic from tabloid scandal, prominently featuring an when she was going through a painful divorce
Oregon who gained control of a valuable, Internet psychic. and started visiting Marks' storefront operation
thousand-acre tree farm as well as its owner's Just after midnight on the day after in New York City.
heart; a Florida fortune-telling fraudster who Labor Day, Tobias' wife, Filomena, found her "I kept coming back because she was
was so good that she duped a best-selling author, husband's lifeless body face down in the listening to me, and I had never been able to get
and many more. swimming pool of their Jupiter, Florida home. anyone to just plain listen to me," she testified in
Travel with us into the past and meet He died soon after, leaving an estate estimated to 2013.
some of the charlatans who claimed to see the be worth as much as $25 million. Marks told her that "money is the root of
future, when all they were really looking at was Because Tobias had not updated his will all evil," and convinced her to turn over millions
a fast buck. after a previous marriage ended in divorce, in cash and property until she could remove the
Filomena's attorneys argued that Florida law curse from it—at which point she would give it
"Call Me Now" entitled her as the surviving spouse to the entire all back. Of course, the last part never
estate. Seth's four brothers, to their horror, happened—for Deveraux or thousands of other
would receive nothing. clients.
On late night TV in the 1990s, the commercials
Enter Billy Ash, a California man who The Marks family argued that they were
were impossible to miss.
claimed to be the Tobiases' personal assistant. simply carrying on a tradition of fortune telling
"Call me now for your free reading," said
the woman with the Jamaican accent in the high- Ash told a handful of reporters that Filomena as part of their Roma—or gypsy—heritage, and
confided she had hatched a plot to murder Seth never meant to defraud anyone. But a jury didn't
backed chair, her fortune-telling tarot cards
by spiking his pasta with the sleep medication buy it. Marks is serving a ten-year sentence at a
spread out on the table in front of her.
Ambien, then luring him to the pool with the federal prison in West Virginia, following one of
"The cards can reveal things that you
promise of three-way sex with a male stripper. the first successful federal psychic fraud
will never see by yourself!"
Not only did tabloids seize on the wild prosecutions in U.S. history.
In the ads, "Miss Cleo" could be seen
story, so did the Tobias brothers, who argued in
answering questions for grateful callers to the
court that Filomena should be barred from (Continued on Page 86)
Psychic Readers Network hotline. The 800
collecting any money because of Florida's so-
number for "free" readings was splashed across
the bottom of the screen as Cleo identified the called "slayer statute."
A CNBC investigation eventually
father of a caller's child, or told another whether
revealed that Ash was not a personal assistant,
her boyfriend was cheating on her.
but Filomena's Internet psychic, who used the
Millions of people did call the hotline,
tag line "Ask Billy." After Filomena had refused
whether for a little entertainment or because
to give him money following her husband's
they really believed Miss Cleo might have the
death, he used personal information from their
answers. But the readings were hardly free.
sessions to spin his tale of death by pasta.
Callers would find themselves on the hook for as
Authorities eventually ruled that Seth
much as $300 per call. And the "psychic" on the