How to Avoid Psychic & Tarot Scams

Published 31 July 2026 · Updated 2 August 2026 · Reviewed by the Olivia Rivera

The overwhelming majority of tarot readers are honest people offering a thoughtful, reflective service for a fair fee. Most will happily tell you that a reading is a conversation and a mirror, not a machine for predicting or controlling the future. But sitting alongside them is a small, predatory minority who run scams that have cost individual victims tens — sometimes hundreds — of thousands of pounds. These cons are old, well-documented, and remarkably consistent from one country to the next. Once you know their shape, they become far easier to spot.

This guide walks through the classic frauds, explains the psychology that makes them work (including the famous Barnum effect and the technique of cold reading), sets out the red flags of a predatory reader, and shows you how to vet an ethical one. If you have already lost money, there is a section at the end on where to report it. Nothing here is meant to shame anyone who has been caught out — these scams are engineered by professionals to exploit people at vulnerable moments, and being deceived by one is no reflection on your intelligence.

The classic scams, and how they run

1. The curse (or "dark energy") you must pay to remove

This is the signature con, and the one most likely to end in a criminal prosecution. The reader announces — often within minutes, sometimes for free at first — that you are cursed, that a jealous person has placed a hex on you, or that "negative energy" is blocking your love, money or family. Then comes the pitch: for a fee, they can lift it. The fee is rarely a one-off. It escalates. The "work" requires expensive candles, special crystals, prayers said over a set number of days, or — in the most brazen cases — that you hand over cash, jewellery or savings temporarily so it can be "cleansed", after which it mysteriously cannot be returned.

US prosecutors have brought major fraud cases against fortune-tellers running exactly this scheme, with individual losses running well into six and even seven figures and charges including grand larceny and money laundering. The documented pattern of fortune-telling fraud is strikingly uniform across these cases. The single most useful rule you can carry with you is this: no legitimate reader ever charges you to remove a curse. If you hear the word "curse" followed by a price, the reading is over. Walk away.

2. Escalating fees and the "sunk cost" trap

Scammers rarely ask for everything at once. The first request is small and reasonable — a modest reading fee. The next is a little larger, "for materials". Then larger again, because the energy is "more stubborn than expected". Each payment makes the last one feel like an investment you must protect, which is precisely the psychology the con relies on. Watch for demands for cash only, bank transfers, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or purchases funnelled through the reader's own shop. Legitimate businesses take ordinary, traceable payment for a stated service.

3. Love, soulmate and "reunion" spells

A whole cottage industry sells spells to make an ex return, bind a soulmate, or guarantee a marriage. These target people in acute heartbreak, which is exactly why they are so lucrative and so cruel. The promise — "I can make them come back to you" — is impossible on its face: no one can control another adult's free choices. When a reunion spell is sold for a large, escalating sum, it is not a spiritual service; it is fraud dressed in candles.

4. Fear-based upselling and manufactured urgency

"Something terrible will happen to your child unless we act tonight." "The window to fix this closes at the next full moon." Fear and time pressure are sales tools, not features of an honest reading. A real reader has no reason to frighten you or rush you; a scammer needs both, because fear switches off careful thinking and urgency prevents you from seeking a second opinion or sleeping on it.

How cold reading actually works

People often ask, quite reasonably, "But how did they know that about me?" The answer is usually a technique rather than a gift. Cold reading is a set of skills a reader can use to appear to know a great deal about a stranger. It combines high-probability guesses (most people visiting a reader are worried about love, money, health or family), close observation of your age, clothing, body language and reactions, and a stream of statements broad enough to fit almost anyone. The reader offers a guess; you unconsciously confirm the hits and forget the misses; the reader then feeds your own information back to you as revelation.

Working hand-in-hand with cold reading is the Barnum effect (also called the Forer effect). In a classic demonstration, psychologist Bertram Forer gave students what they believed was a personalised personality profile and asked them to rate its accuracy. They rated it, on average, remarkably highly — yet everyone had received the identical text, assembled from horoscope columns. As one summary of the phenomenon puts it, people give "high accuracy ratings" to descriptions "supposedly tailored specifically for them" that are in fact vague enough to apply to nearly anyone. Statements like "you have a great deal of unused potential" or "at times you are outgoing, at other times reserved" feel piercingly personal precisely because they are universal.

Red flags checklist

If a reader or service shows even one or two of these, treat it as a serious warning. Several together mean you are almost certainly dealing with a scam:

• They tell you that you are cursed, hexed, or carrying "dark energy" — and can remove it for a fee.
• Fees escalate over time, or the "work" keeps needing more money, more candles, more sessions.
• Payment is untraceable: cash only, gift cards, wire transfer, crypto, or goods bought through them.
• They ask you to hand over money or valuables to be "cleansed" and returned. You will not see them again.
• Guaranteed outcomes — a returned ex, a specific lottery win, a guaranteed marriage.
• Fear and urgency: catastrophe is imminent unless you pay now.
• Demands for secrecy: "don't tell your family/partner." Isolation protects the scammer from anyone who might talk sense into you.
• They discourage second opinions or become hostile when questioned.
• They diagnose or "cure" medical, psychiatric or financial problems instead of referring you on.
• No clear, fixed price published before you sit down.

What a legitimate reading does — and does not — do

Knowing the honest version makes the dishonest one obvious. An ethical reading:

• Charges a clear, upfront fee for the reader's time — a fixed session price, stated before you begin, not an open-ended fund for fixing your fate.
• Empowers your own decisions. It offers perspective and prompts reflection; it never induces dread or dependency.
• Welcomes questions. A good reader is entirely comfortable with you taking notes, asking how something works, pausing, or saying no.
• Stays in its lane. For anything medical, legal, financial or psychological, an ethical reader refers you to a qualified professional rather than claiming to treat it.
• Makes no guarantees about other people's behaviour or specific future events.

For more on where the honest boundaries of the practice sit, see our companion pieces on whether tarot is dangerous, on reading responsibly, and our overview of reading ethics.

How to vet a reader before you book

A little due diligence up front prevents almost all trouble. Before you pay anyone:

1. Check the price is fixed and published. A stated fee for a stated length of session is the single best sign of an honest operator.
2. Read independent reviews away from the reader's own website — and be sceptical of a wall of five-star reviews with no substance.
3. Ask directly how they work. An ethical reader will describe tarot as reflective and interpretive. Evasiveness, or grand claims of guaranteed power, is a warning.
4. Test the boundaries. Ask whether they can "guarantee" an outcome or "remove negativity" for extra money. The right answer is a clear no.
5. Start small and never pre-pay a package. Book one session. Decline any pressure to commit to a course of expensive "work".
6. Keep your financial details to yourself. No reading requires your bank login, your savings, or your jewellery.
7. Bring a friend, or tell one. Scammers rely on isolation; a second perspective breaks the spell.

Expert perspective

Consumer-protection agencies are blunt about this category of fraud. The US Federal Trade Commission, whose consumer advice site catalogues the tactics of scams generally, repeatedly warns that fraudsters manufacture a crisis, demand secrecy, insist on unusual and untraceable payment methods, and pressure victims to act immediately — the exact playbook of the curse-removal con. As the FTC's long-running guidance on avoiding fraud emphasises, legitimate businesses do not demand gift cards or wire transfers and do not tell you to keep a payment secret from your family or your bank.

The lesson our editorial team draws from reviewing these cases is simple. The supernatural framing is a distraction; underneath, this is an ordinary confidence trick with three moving parts — invent a problem, make the victim afraid, and extract escalating payment to solve it. Strip away the candles and the crystals and you are left with the same structure as a fake-invoice or romance scam. Judge the transaction, not the mysticism.

What to do if you have been scammed

First, stop paying. There is no genuine "work" that will be undone by ending the payments, because there was no work. Then:

• Preserve the evidence. Keep messages, receipts, bank records, names and photographs. They matter for any investigation or refund claim.
• Contact your bank or card provider immediately. Recent card and transfer payments can sometimes be reversed or flagged; act quickly.
• Report it. In the United States, report to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov. In the UK, report to Action Fraud and to Citizens Advice. Elsewhere, contact your national consumer-protection or fraud body and your local police. Reporting helps others even when your own money cannot be recovered.
• Be alert to a second sting. Victims are often approached again by someone promising to recover the lost money for an up-front fee — this "recovery scam" is simply the same fraud a second time. Never pay to get money back.
• Talk to someone you trust. Shame keeps victims silent and scammers in business. You are not the first and you did nothing wrong.

Frequently asked questions