Legitimate Psychic Readings, How to Avoid Being Scammed
Aug 23, 2022
Okay, so you are interested in having a professional psychic reading done and you are looking for someone to choose. Maybe there are a few that you have followed on Instagram or TikTok and you really like their style , sense of humour and the things that they talk about - so you figure that’s where you will start. After all, you've become a fan and you’d like to support them with a booking. Low and behold, you check your inbox and you already have a message from them where they are offering you a reading. “Wow they must be truly psychic!” you think. You excitedly start to converse with them to arrange your session. They offer you an awesome price ( you are a bit surprised because you’d think that with the following they have they’d be able to charge more ) , but you send them over the payment excited for your first official psychic reading experience. The money sent, your booking confirmed… you have butterflies in your stomach because you cannot wait to be face to face with your favourite psychic personality. The date and time of your booked appointment comes, you go to check your inbox for a message to receive your reading, but instead it appears they have disappeared, what-the- fuck, yep and you’ve been blocked!
So then you go ahead and search for their profile and it is still there just as it was, active and thriving. That’s when you realise your mistake. The person whom you have been conversing with in the direct messages IS NOT the person who you thought it was. It was not the popular psychic you follow but instead a fake account, using a slight variation of the same name - a clone of all their content on their profile, pretending to be them. The reason the message was already waiting in your inbox to entice you for a booking is because they were actually dm-ing ALL of this popular psychic’s followers with the same message. You’ve just sent money to a complete stranger who has now ghosted you, you won’t be getting a reading today.
Has this ever happened to you? This exact experience is happening to people all over the internet on all social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. People believe they are being flattered with a follow from their favourite micro-influencer psychic reader whom they adamantly follow, only to discover that they are being followed by clone accounts from scammers who are pretending to be them. The natural instinct after this happens is obviously to attempt to report the cloned account to the social media platform so that they can take care of it, right!? Unfortunately, if and when you do this, you’ll likely get a message back from the platform saying “they don’t find anything wrong with it.” After all, most of the reporting systems on these platforms are run by bots, not humans - they simply check the profile to see if it violates anything, not cross checking the identity of the profile to see that it is a copied account.
@brandiepeters_ Next time just “@“ then this meme. 🙌😂 #spirituality #spiritualtiktok ♬ Every Breath You Take - The Police
Getting scammed by an imposter psychic reader using a cloned profile is just one of the many terrible psychic scams you can run into online.
Over the last few years this particular scam has become incredibly common, with scammers creating clone profiles ( often multiples ) of the same popular psychic reader, medium or spiritualist and then mass following and dm-ing their audiences offering readings. For the genuine readers to whom this is happening, handling the influx of dms ( many being complaints from their audience about undelivered services ) can be incredibly frustrating. Attempting to deal with these accounts is a full time game of whack-a-mole, you might get the social media platform to take it down but then another will certainly pop up again with a new variation of the username. It is gross.
See below: for an example of a popular Psychic / Tarot Reader Account and look how many copied / cloned accounts!!!
👉 Here is the real Tarot Reader Peter to follow btw, poor man, having to deal with this!!
The impact that these cloned account scammers have had on the entire spiritual community online has been immense. Those who used to make their livelihood providing readings for their communities, the audiences who they earned through many years as content creators, are losing their income because people don’t reach out to book after they’ve had a bad experience with a scammer. Their audience engagement and therefore their reach and visibility is also reduced because people don’t want to engage on their content anymore ( leave comments, share it, etc. ) because every time they do they get an influx of scam account messages offering “these fake promises of readings”. It cannot be confirmed, but many who engage in the spiritual communities on social media feel that the social media platforms themselves, again Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc. are so overwhelmed by the reports and administrative attention that these fake accounts require that they have been suppressing this type of content all together. Despite the massive popularity of new age spiritual-niche content, witchy content, psychic content, energetic healing content, mediumship and paranormal content on social media - these topics, which are already outside of the mainstream and considered controversial, are being suppressed in reach because of how they attractive they are to scammers. Punishing the entire community for it seems to be the only solution that these massive social media platforms can offer.
@captoliaonline , so you prob get this all the time but there is another duplicate of your account. 🤮 It followed me - I was tricked and thought it was you, but then when they offered the reading… pic.twitter.com/WecTp7Sh4V
— PsyChicks (@PsychicksC) August 23, 2022
You think that it would be easy to spot a fake psychic reader account?
Now you may be reading this and thinking to yourself that you would never fall for this type of thing and that you would instantly recognize a copy of your favourite psychics profile , like you’d be able to totally tell the difference right?
Well, some of these are obvious because the scammer does not do a very good job cloning the profile only bothering to duplicate about 9 posts and if you scroll down, they will still have their old pictures on their profile intact ( most of these are young African males located in third world countries - ) , the amateurs will be so lazy about the profile cloning they still have their personal pictures on their profile, with connections ( friends ) and everything who are local to them - even people wishing them happy birthday in their native language, it looks totally weird. The username is just a slight variation of the profile they are copying and the profile picture will be the exact one as the legitimate account. It doesn’t take much research to catch on to these ones as being scams, and the best course of action is to simply block it and move on. Of course, don’t book the reading and send money, and don’t engage with them in direct messages, just spare yourself the grief.
View this post on Instagram
However, as easy as it is to give the advice “just don’t be stupid and you’ll be okay”, people are still being misled by these psychic scammers every day. Some of these clone profiles can be incredibly convincing and , let’s be honest, some people are more vulnerable than others. Individuals who are particularly in need of support, feeling lonely, seeking guidance, or simply naive to the shadier aspects of social media are often the victims, at times sending hundreds of dollars for readings or spiritual offerings, to someone whom they believe is their favourite social media personality but is actually a total catfish.
How to avoid being scammed by a fake account
The good news is that as this ploy has grown in commonality ( more scammers are trying it ) , more people are also becoming aware of it and sharing their experiences, so honestly - their little trick is becoming less effective by the day. Distributing information, exposing blogs and articles like this one, around the spiritual community helps to get the word out so that everyone knows what to look out for and can protect themselves. This is great for the popular online psychics who are constantly having their profiles cloned because the more informed their audiences are the less labour they have to do trying to stomp out the imposters.
Beyond this though there are some things to keep in mind as you are navigating the spiritual community waters on social media. Here’s how you avoid ever being scammed by a fake reader on social media.
1. Know that professionals don’t reach out to you, you reach out to them!
The real professionals will never send you a direct message saying that they are drawn to you or would like to offer you a discounted reading. They likely won’t even send you a direct message at all. Professionals will operate their business properly and post content on their public profile offering what they have for sale, but they won’t just DM all of their followers out of the blue offering things to them, or requesting money. Even a beginner ( not an influencer account ) typically isn’t going to behave this way. Most psychics know that choosing your reader ( the person who resonates with you ) is about attraction and connection, they’ll give you a lot of great content to read and consider, maybe even do some free readings on live streams, but they will not desperately beg for you to book with them. That’s just not typical of anyone who is in the business for the right reasons.
2. Look closely at the profile before buying anything!
Fool me once shame on you, fool me…. Just don’t be fooled once, twice, or at all. If someone does grab your attention online and you want to book but you are a bit sceptical REALLY take a look at their profile. Go deep. Look for things that legitimise them as someone who has been in business and building a presence online for some time. Do they seem to have real engagement? Look for real people commenting on their posts. Do they have a website? How long have they been on the platform? Look at the followers, are the majority missing profile pictures or located in foreign countries.
3. Google search them, seriously!
A Google search of the reader's real name, business name, or username should pop up the true identities real online presence. Many spiritual business owners work hard to build an attractive presence online and will have more than just one janky Instagram Account to verify them. You should find a website, other social media profiles, ideally testimonials from customers and clients. You can avoid being scammed just by running the name of the person whom you THINK you are dealing with through google. If you really like what they are about, consider buying their offerings directly from them via their website or official channels. Honestly, most of these folks are now privy to the behaviour of scammers and do not conduct business in their DMs for this reason. A direct messenger only business is a first red flag. There should be a booking website and payment process that isn't a cash app or paypal.me.
The truth is that for decades now spiritualists have been associated with different types of scams. The nature of the work itself is naturally going to be paired with scepticism and all metaphysical work is honestly difficult to validate especially for those who aren’t informed. Some might claim that “all psychics are scamming people” obviously here at PsyChicks we don’t believe that.
Instead, what we do here with the PsyChicks Collective is help psychics, mediums, transformational coaches, healers and other spiritual niche business operators build an online presence so that their business can grow. We know how important it is for people with these types of businesses to be able to present themselves attractively and professionally in order to bring in clients. We also understand how important it is to provide safety for the audiences of these types of businesses and spiritual content , you cannot deny the fact that there is a shady underbelly in this interest segment.
Every person listed on the PsyChick Collective website here:
- Must meet on a zoom call and demonstrate their modality
- Must practice “invited selling” meaning you reach out to them, not them to you
- Are operating their business in a professional manner
- Have a true passion for delivering high quality healing experiences to their clients
At PsyChicks we always say that we want to leave people better than we found them. A key component of the model is that no matter what we make sure we are holding space for people, and creating compassionate containers for healing and personal growth.
If you have never had a psychic experience before, a reading or other metaphysical service such as coaching or energy healing with reiki, you shouldn’t be intimidated by it. Who you have your first experience with is going to set the tone for all of your future experiences and therefore you should be picky about who you invest in. There is an exchange of energy to all things and booking appointments with healers should feel good , not scary or come with resistance. This is another instance where trusting your own intuition and gut will protect you from putting your faith in the wrong person and being let down.
Immerse Yourself In The Community
We may have a slight bias interest here as one of the main things that PsyChicks offers is a welcoming and supportive environment for those who are spiritually curious to indulge their interests and interact with psychics in a community setting. The reason why PsyChicks exists as well as the PsyChicks Collective is to try to provide some safety for those who are interested in developing their own gifts, being mentored, receiving guidance and just geeking about metaphysical everything with like-minded people who understand them. A community, in our opinion anyways, is a better way to do this rather than just to “follow” some random spiritualist on social media who may or may not have your best interest at heart. In a community setting you can get multiple worldviews, have your own intuitive instincts validated, learn from practised and experienced people, ask questions, and know that there are others who care about you and have your back.
It is an uphill battle to inform people about the cloned accounts and psychic scams that are on social media, even our own PsyChicks Collective Instagram account and Facebook were copied at one point. The nightmare and lack of empathy from the social media platforms you go through when dealing with it is unbelievable - trust me, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. The resolution honestly is to spread the word. The more people who know the scheme the fewer people who are going to get duped by it.
Thanks for reading! I am grateful. 🙏💕
Blog Written By Brandie Michelle
( PsyChicks Collective Founder & Community Host )
Click here. Ask me anything...
