Psychic Scams?

(...)
Cleo, excuse me, "Miss Cleo" excitedly tells you that all you have to do is call the telephone number boldly plastered on the screen for her tarot card readings. She'll give you three minutes of free advice about your life, your loves, and your future. She doesn't tell you that more time is going to cost you big time. But growing numbers of dissatisfied callers are up in arms over the charges they have had to pay.

Miss Cleo has been on my mind because this past week, the state of Missouri filed lawsuits against her psychic hotline for allegedly violating the state's no-call law and for consumer fraud. As Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon put it, Miss Cleo (if she's psychic) should have seen it coming. He said, "It doesn't take a crystal ball to realize that ripping off consumers is not without consequences."
Missouri callers were reportedly billed for free services by spending three minutes on the phone providing personal information and then were charged for the time they spent waiting to talk to a psychic.
This got me to thinking about what seems to be unprecedented interest by the American people today in mind reading, faith healing, psychics, and mediums.
The New York Times has a feature today on John Edward, the 31-year-old host of what was once an obscure late night show on the Sci-Fi channel, where he claimed to receive messages from dead people. But now, he's become so popular his psychic talk show, Crossing Over with John Edward, is being nationally syndicated.
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For decades polls have shown that up to two thirds of the population believe in psychic phenomena. But what's unique about today, is that so many people are shelling out millions of dollars to explore the "the other world." Thirty-seven percent of the nation's police departments admit to having tried psychics to solve crimes.
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Psychic Scams?

Hot Lines or Con Lines?