Take Action To Keep These Rip-Offs Out Of Your Future Warning: Televised Offers To Read Your Mind May Be Only A Ploy To Pick Your Pocket.

Wed., Dec. 31, 1997

Jerry Williams Special To Opinion

It seems that the latest fad is psychics on the phone lines. You call the phone number on the television screen and a psychic on the other end presumably tells your future.

They seem to have found a deceptive route to profits. If it’s not illegal, it should be.

The TV ads claim free time with psychics on a 1-800 number. What you actually get, we have found, may be a whole different story.

We have a 14-year-old son who became curious about the claims of phone psychics and was attracted by the offer of a free gift and free time with a psychic on a “free” phone line.

Without our knowledge or consent, he made the call, thinking it was free and so didn’t require our permission. The result was a membership in some kind of psychic encounter group. Now he receives a monthly “free” gift with an offer of special rates and prices for all sorts of psychic toys and psychic help.

Two things about this experience really worry us and should alarm others as well. The first is that somehow, from that one call, they managed to get my birth date and Social Security number which they now provide as proof that I made the call and entered into some kind of agreement with them.

They couldn’t have drawn this information from my son. And I don’t think they’re that psychic.

The second problem is that their bill became part of our monthly phone bill. This appears as a $9.95 charge every month, with no phone calls being made and nothing being ordered or received. It seems that this monthly charge is a membership fee that allows us to receive a junk trinket each month.

This bill went undetected for at least five months as my wife, in paying the phone bill, simply assumed the charge was for some call one of us made. When I took a closer look to discover why our phone bill was so high, I discovered this monthly charge. The phone company was good enough to drop the charges for three months.

Two things need to happen to stop these scam artists on the phone lines. Security about such information as birth dates, Social Security numbers credit card numbers, etc., needs to be tightened.

Second, since the dishonest will continue to look for and find new ways to slip a charge onto your bills, we all need to be on the alert and watch the details of those bills we routinely pay without question.

MEMO: Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a Your Turn column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write Your Turn, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.

Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a Your Turn column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write Your Turn, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.

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