Out In The Open

How one woman's psychic habit cost her $60,000

Monica found herself handing over jewellery, gift cards and piles of cash to a woman claiming psychic powers.
Monica found herself handing over jewellery, gift cards and piles of cash to a woman claiming psychic powers.

With her 26 year-long marriage falling apart and no one to turn to for support, Monica started to look for someone to talk to. She decided to find a psychic, and started searching online.

"One particular name just constantly kept popping up, and so I decided that must be a sign that that is the person I was supposed to speak with, and so I made an appointment and went," she said.

At her first session, Monica had her poker face on, but she said the psychic broke her guard down by telling her about memories from her past. 

"The things she told me in my past, nobody knew ... Abandonment, mental and physical abuse, getting married at a very young age and walking down the aisle thinking 'I'm making the biggest mistake of my life.' Nobody knew that but me. I had never shared that with anybody so how did she know that?"

The psychic said she would help solve Monica's problems. Monica just wanted a peaceful life for her and her daughter after divorcing her husband, so the psychic "put a protection" on her and told her the divorce paperwork would be filed without a problem.

She was correct.

Despite the initial success, there were red flags. Whereas Monica considered her interactions with the psychic a business relationship, she said the psychic tried to label it a friendship.

Nonetheless, Monica found herself calling the psychic whenever something went wrong — and at times, the psychic called her when she sensed something was off in Monica's life. The two were in contact two or three times a week, ultimately to the tune of $60,000 over the course of almost two years.

After a while, demands to pacify the negative energy started to pick up steam. When Monica's jewellery wouldn't "cleanse" to release the bad vibes they held, Monica said the psychic demanded she hand them over so she could dispose of them. 

They were worth $15,000.

Monica justified her losses by telling herself that she wasn't hurting anyone — and it was all panning out in terms of the psychic's correct predictions.

Next, Monica said, came the demand for two $500 gift cards that the psychic used to buy clothes to do a ritual with, in order to rid her of a "curse". Then were the special candles. Monica refused to give the psychic $2500 for each candle, and instead simply gave her $1000.

"And the problem is, with psychics, you give cash — there's no receipts," she said.

The deal breaker came when Monica sold her house. She said the psychic asked for a sacrifice, and Monica assumed she meant a painting or a chair or something similar.

"She said 'No, I want $100,000 from the sale of your home.'"

This was when Monica realized she was being scammed. She put her foot down, cut her losses, and blocked the psychic's number.

But that isn't the end of Monica's interest with psychics. She's seeing a new psychic, but says her friends keep her in check to make sure she doesn't fall down the rabbit hole again.

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