There is a deal company that I used to partner with, and perhaps I met you through them, too. The partnership worked well and we had happy clients. I felt that it was a win for my industry because we were taking Tarot out of the “scary occult/ creepy storefront” bad wrap it has had and bringing the wonderful healing and clarifying world of Tarot to people who had not known otherwise how great it was. I reached out to this deal company and became the first intuitive to run with them in the greater Philadelphia area, it was a halcyon time and great for my business because I was able to meet so many wonderful people. The deal company,who takes 50% of the deal, made a nice little profit off of my hard work, too. In and around Philadelphia, unfortunately, there exists an older breed of “tarot readers”. Most of the time they aren’t even able to read Tarot, they just use a cold reading technique (and they are very good at this) to make you feel like they have made a psychic hit. Just when you start to believe that they are the real deal they then will try to convince you that you have a spell/spirit/negative energy/bad luck/ chakra unbalanced/pick one issue that you now need to buy more services/candles/spells/whatever fleecing BS they have come up with this time. These so called Tarot readers often have a store-front and websites without real full names, pictures or certifications. These con artists have been known in and around Philadelphia for a long time. These scammers saw the great thing I did and also reached out to the deal company. The deal company decided to run them alongside mine. At that point, I started to catch wind from clients that these very same con artists were trying the old usual trick on people they harvested through the deal company. I reached out to the deal company, including a very high level associate in this area, to voice my concerns. Not all Tarot readers are the same and they, by running these con artists, were making people believe that there was some vetting process; as why would a reputable deal company run con men? I believed that voicing my concerns with proof (emails from clients complaining to me who also bought deals to see me so legitimate customers) would mean that it would stop and that this deal company would be careful about who they ran... Boy, was I wrong. My and many others' issues and concerns were swept under the rug and ignored. I finally told this deal company that I would no longer run with them (after a successful relationship for almost 2 years). The high level associate asked me why (she refused to talk to me on the phone), I told her that the biggest reason I would no longer run with them was because not only were they knowingly running con artists, they were also actively contributing to the ongoing stigma and stereotypes around Tarot by doing so. I work so very hard to bring dignity to Tarot and to shed a light on how it really works, and here was the deal company I worked so hard with for so long, completely undermining those efforts in my city just to make an extra buck. I was kind, I was honest. This associate who I had known for over a year, who I spent hours on the phone talking about more than business, who I personally invited for free to come in for a reading...never returned my email and that was that. After all our partnership was and as much money I made for them, I was unimportant enough to completely ignore. That action alone told me all along, how little I meant. I was just another cash cow to suckle finds from. So even now, this deal company is running con artists who have a known paper trail of deceit, who have terrible reviews against them both within the deal website and among others… and they do not care. They do not care that you, the consumer of their deals, who are getting actively scammed by these people. They have the info and they take no action, they continue to run them. They do not care that they are ruining the fragile bridges I and so many other true Tarot and intuitive professionals are building. They care only in the bottom line at all costs. The bottom line is your money, at the cost of the dignity of you as a person. I tell you all of this to warn you that many of the psychics that are running deals have not been vetted in the slightest and many of them are known scam artists… yet the deal company still runs them. You will not be given a fair reading, you will be scared or hassled or hard-sold into something else by these people. This company might refund you if you complain, but then they will run these scammers again and again, exposing these theives to a wide audience of people who will fall prey to their disgusting tactics.
If a deal company is running known scam artists and does nothing to protect consumers, are they not also scam artists, themselves? I hope you protect your heart, your spirit, your sense of well-being AND your wallet. Please think twice before giving your hard earned cash to a company that is this rapacious and greedy, who thinks so little of you, who would rather you get scammed as long as they get 50% of that dollar.
4 Comments
3/5/2014 12:44:07 am
Ew ew ew ew ew! That is all I have to say about that! Some of us actually care about tarot, life coaching, and bonding with our clients on a spiritual level. For every honest tarot reader out there, there are 12 people trying to make a quick buck by seeing death, curses, and evil spirits (pay me $1,000 to take it off!) That's disgusting. What's even worse is people that CAPITALIZE on that! Oh this reader is making a fortune off scamming successfully? Let me get a slice out of that pie.
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I admire the fact that although they were clearly in the wrong and practicing in a manner most would consider unethical, you did not actually name the company.
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Hello Tarot Ann and thanks for dropping by and the comments. I would have to say that until this deal company decided to move forward with unethical practices, the deals and the people I met through the deals were largely positive; I have many return clients that first met me via the deal and they are amazing!
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Jenna Matlin
M.S. in Organizational Psychology and Leadership Categories
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