07-27-2016, 07:19 AM
Do you remember the psychic "Miss Cleo"? File under "Fakes, Frauds, and Poseurs".
Youree Dell Harris (August 12, 1962 – July 26, 2016) was an American television personality best known as Miss Cleo, a spokeswoman for a psychic pay-per-call service from 1997 to 2003.[1][2]
Harris used various aliases, including LaShawnda Williams, Corvette Mama, Elenore St. Julian, Desiree Canterlaw, Janet Snyder, Maria Delcampo, Christina Garcia, Cleomili Harris and Youree Perris.[3]
In the late 1990s, Harris began to work for the Psychic Readers Network under the name Cleo. She appeared as a television infomercial psychic in which she claimed she was a mystical shaman from Jamaica.[5][7] Her employers' website also stated that Harris had been born in Trelawny, Jamaica, and grown up there.[4]
The Psychic Readers Network is said to have coined the title "Miss Cleo" and sent unsolicited emails,[8] some of which stated, "[Miss Cleo has] been authorized to issue you a Special Tarot Reading!... it is vital that you call immediately!" Charges of deceptive advertising and of fraud on the part of the Psychic Readers Network began to surface around this time.[9] Among the complaints were allegations that calls to Miss Cleo were answered by her "associates" who were actors reading from scripts, and that calls promoted as "free" were in fact charged for.[5][10]
In 2001, Access Resource Services doing business as Psychic Readers Network was sued in various lawsuits brought by (among others) Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, and the Federal Communications Commission, although reports later said that "many customers were satisfied with the service".[11]
In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission charged the company's owners and Harris' promoters, Steven Feder and Peter Stotz, with deceptive advertising, billing, and collection practices; Harris was not indicted.[12] Her promoters agreed to settle for a fraction of the amount they took in.[13] It emerged that she had been born in Los Angeles, and that her parents were U.S. citizens.[11]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Cleo
"The cards, they do not lie!"... but attempting to interpret them is still folly.
My sympathy about the cancer nonetheless.
Youree Dell Harris (August 12, 1962 – July 26, 2016) was an American television personality best known as Miss Cleo, a spokeswoman for a psychic pay-per-call service from 1997 to 2003.[1][2]
Harris used various aliases, including LaShawnda Williams, Corvette Mama, Elenore St. Julian, Desiree Canterlaw, Janet Snyder, Maria Delcampo, Christina Garcia, Cleomili Harris and Youree Perris.[3]
In the late 1990s, Harris began to work for the Psychic Readers Network under the name Cleo. She appeared as a television infomercial psychic in which she claimed she was a mystical shaman from Jamaica.[5][7] Her employers' website also stated that Harris had been born in Trelawny, Jamaica, and grown up there.[4]
The Psychic Readers Network is said to have coined the title "Miss Cleo" and sent unsolicited emails,[8] some of which stated, "[Miss Cleo has] been authorized to issue you a Special Tarot Reading!... it is vital that you call immediately!" Charges of deceptive advertising and of fraud on the part of the Psychic Readers Network began to surface around this time.[9] Among the complaints were allegations that calls to Miss Cleo were answered by her "associates" who were actors reading from scripts, and that calls promoted as "free" were in fact charged for.[5][10]
In 2001, Access Resource Services doing business as Psychic Readers Network was sued in various lawsuits brought by (among others) Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, and the Federal Communications Commission, although reports later said that "many customers were satisfied with the service".[11]
In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission charged the company's owners and Harris' promoters, Steven Feder and Peter Stotz, with deceptive advertising, billing, and collection practices; Harris was not indicted.[12] Her promoters agreed to settle for a fraction of the amount they took in.[13] It emerged that she had been born in Los Angeles, and that her parents were U.S. citizens.[11]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Cleo
"The cards, they do not lie!"... but attempting to interpret them is still folly.
My sympathy about the cancer nonetheless.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.