A Psychic Says You're Cursed? What to Do Next, and How Curse-Removal Scams Actually Work

The short answer. If a psychic has told you that you are cursed, carry dark energy or have a spiritual blockage, and then offered to remove it for money, do not pay. Do not buy candles, rituals or “cleansing” work, and do not hand over cash, jewellery or gift cards to be “purified”. Save the messages, write down what was said, and talk to someone you trust before you go back. A curse diagnosis followed by a paid cure is the single most consistent feature of the psychic fraud cases that have reached US courts. It does not matter whether you believe in curses: no genuine spiritual tradition fixes one with an escalating invoice. If you have already paid, move fast on getting money back.

If you are reading this, you may be frightened. Someone you went to for clarity has told you that something dark is attached to you, your family or your relationship, and that it explains the bad things that have been happening. They may have said it will get worse if you do nothing. They may have asked you to keep it to yourself.

This guide is written for that moment. It does not ask you to stop believing anything. It explains what to do today, how the curse-removal script works, what religious and folk traditions actually do about curses and the evil eye, what the law says, and how to protect your money. It is part of the trust library on this site, alongside how to spot a fake psychic and how to tell if an online psychic is legitimate.

First: You Are Not Foolish for Taking It Seriously

People who fall for curse scams are often described as gullible. The evidence says otherwise.

• Belief in curses is mainstream worldwide. The largest study of the subject, by economist Boris Gershman, analysed surveys of more than 140,000 people in 95 countries. Roughly 40% said they believe certain people can cast curses or spells, ranging from about 9% in Sweden to about 90% in Tunisia (Gershman, 2022, PLOS ONE).
• Stress makes everyone look for hidden causes. Psychologist Giora Keinan found that people under high stress show more magical thinking, especially those who find uncertainty hard to tolerate (Keinan, 1994, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). A breakup, an illness, a lost job or a bereavement is exactly the kind of stress that makes a curse explanation feel right.
• The victims in court cases are not unusual people. They include a best-selling novelist, a woman who borrowed against her home to pay, and a man grieving a woman he loved. What they had in common was a hard season of life, not a lack of intelligence.

So the problem is not that you listened. The problem is a script designed to work on people in pain. Once you can see the script, it loses most of its power.

What to Do in the Next 24 Hours

Work through these in order. None of them require you to confront anyone.

1. Pay nothing more. Not a “small” deposit for candles, not a materials fee, not a “last” payment. Every documented case escalates from a small first payment.
2. Hand over nothing to be cleansed. Cash, jewellery, gold, family heirlooms and gift cards “brought in for purification” are a classic way money disappears. In the Pennsylvania case described below, prosecutors allege victims handed over cash, jewellery, clothing, concert tickets and gift cards.
3. Save everything. Screenshot chats, keep voicemails, emails, receipts, card statements and any objects you were given. Write a short timeline: date, what was said, what you paid, how you paid.
4. Do not announce your next step. If you plan to dispute a payment or make a report, you do not have to tell the reader first. A warning only gives them time to pressure you.
5. Break the secrecy. If you were told not to tell anyone “or the curse will strengthen”, that instruction is the clearest sign of all. Tell one person you trust today.
6. Check how you paid. Card payments, gift cards, bank transfers and payment apps each have different deadlines for getting money back. The money-back guide lists them.
7. Sleep on any decision. Genuine spiritual help does not expire at midnight. Anything that “must be done tonight” is pressure, not guidance.

If you feel unsafe, hopeless or unable to cope, that matters more than any of the above. In the US you can call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline). Elsewhere, contact your doctor or local emergency services.

How the Curse-Removal Script Works: Five Stages

When you read the court records and news coverage of the major cases side by side, the same structure appears again and again. The details change (candles, eggs, crystals, gold, “cursed money”), but the stages do not.

Stage 1: The hook

The reading starts normally, and then the reader stops. They see “a dark cloud”, “a block around your heart”, “something attached to your family line”, or “negative energy someone sent you”. The hook always explains something real in your life: why the relationship ended, why money will not stick, why you cannot sleep.

Stage 2: Raising the stakes

The problem becomes urgent and frightening. It will get worse. It may affect your children. It may be why your partner left. The reader becomes the only person who can see it and the only person who can fix it.

Stage 3: The small first price

The first payment is modest and concrete: candles to burn, a crystal, a prayer that “takes several days”, a bath ritual. Small amounts feel safe, and paying once makes the next request easier.

Stage 4: Escalation

The work “uncovered something deeper”. The curse is “generational”, “stronger than I thought”, or “fighting back”. New prices arrive, often far larger. This is also where many cases move to cleansing your money or valuables: you bring cash or jewellery to be purified and returned later. It is not returned.

Stage 5: Isolation and lock-in

You are told not to discuss the work with family, friends or clergy because their doubt will “break the spell”. Missing a payment means the curse will return worse than before. Sometimes the reader becomes a confidant you speak to daily. This is the stage that turns a few hundred dollars into tens of thousands.

The script at a glance

What you hear	What is actually happening	What to do
”I see a dark energy around you.”	The hook. It explains a real hardship in your life.	Ask what it means for your question, and decline any paid solution.
”It will get worse if we don’t act now.”	Manufactured urgency.	Say you will think about it. End the session.
”I need $X for candles / materials.”	The low first price.	Pay nothing. Save the request.
”It’s deeper than I thought. It’s generational.”	Escalation.	Stop contact. Talk to someone you trust.
”Bring your cash / jewellery so I can cleanse it.”	The point where large losses happen.	Never hand over money or valuables to be “cleansed”.
”Don’t tell anyone, their doubt will make it stronger.”	Isolation, so nobody can intervene.	Tell someone today.
”If you stop now, it will come back worse.”	Lock-in through fear.	Treat it as a threat and keep your evidence.

Real Cases: What the Courts Found

These cases are drawn from court reporting and official releases. They show how large the losses become and how the stages above play out.

• Rose Marks, Florida (federal). Marks and members of her family ran fortune-telling storefronts in the Fort Lauderdale area. A federal jury convicted her on all 14 counts in September 2013. In March 2014 she was sentenced to just over 10 years in prison for defrauding clients of more than $17.8 million. Romance novelist Jude Deveraux was among her clients and was reported to have paid millions over many years (Broward Palm Beach New Times; Miami New Times).
• Sylvia Mitchell, New York. Mitchell told clients they had “negative energy” she could help clear. One client paid more than $120,000 over two years; another wrote a $27,000 check drawn on a home credit line. In November 2013 she was sentenced to 5 to 15 years for grand larceny and ordered to pay restitution (Fox News / AP).
• Priscilla Delmaro, New York. A man seeking to be reunited with a woman he loved was promised help through special crystals, a “time machine” and a bridge made of gold. When he learned the woman had died, the story shifted to reincarnating her spirit. He lost more than $550,000 to Delmaro; she pleaded guilty to grand larceny and received probation (ABA Journal).
• The “Maria Duval” mail scheme (federal civil case). For years, mass-mailed letters in the name of a supposed psychic promised personal guidance and sold “unique” talismans that prosecutors said were mass-produced. The Justice Department said the scheme took more than $180 million from victims, many elderly. A 2016 consent decree permanently barred the defendants from using the mail to promote psychic services (US Department of Justice).
• Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, 2025 (charges, not yet proven). In October 2025 two people were charged with offences including theft by deception and fortune telling after prosecutors alleged they told a woman she was cursed and took nearly $596,000 in cash, jewellery, clothing, concert tickets and gift cards between 2022 and 2023, warning that not paying would ruin her marriage, business and family. A second alleged victim lost at least $18,000 (WYMT / Gray News). These are allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

Notice what is missing from every one of these stories: a single client who paid once and was cured. The “cure” is never finished, because the payments are the point.

”But What If I Really Am Cursed?”

Many readers of this page come from cultures and faiths where curses, the evil eye or generational curses are part of ordinary belief. You do not have to give that up to protect yourself. What helps is knowing how your own tradition actually deals with these things, because it is almost never the way a curse-removal seller does.

The evil eye (mal de ojo, nazar, ayin hara)

Belief in the evil eye, harm caused by envious attention, runs from the Mediterranean and the Middle East through South Asia and Latin America. The traditional responses are protective and household-level: a blue nazar bead, a red string, a blessing from an older relative, a simple limpia with an egg, a prayer. They are typically done once, often by family, and cost little or nothing. None of them involve a stranger charging more each week because the problem keeps “growing”.

Generational curses in Christian teaching

The idea of curses passing down family lines comes from passages such as Exodus 20:5, which speaks of iniquity visited “unto the third and fourth generation”. The same scriptures also contain Ezekiel 18:20 (“the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father”) and, for Christians, Galatians 3:13, which teaches that Christ has redeemed believers from the curse. Pastors and priests who work with these concerns approach them through prayer, confession and community. They do not charge for prayer, and a church will not ask you to bring your savings to be blessed.

Islamic, Jewish and other traditions

Islam recognises the evil eye (ayn) and magic (sihr), and the standard remedies are recitation of the Qur’an (ruqyah) and supplication, which can be done by the person themselves or by a trusted imam. Jewish tradition has its own protective customs against ayin hara. Across these traditions the pattern is the same: remedies are religious, communal and accessible, not secret, escalating or sold under threat.

A practical way to hold both beliefs

• If you have a faith, take the concern to your own clergy. That gives you someone with real standing in your tradition, who knows you, and who has no financial stake in the answer.
• If you are drawn to spiritual cleansing, choose practices you control. Prayer, meditation, a cleansing bath, smoke cleansing or a protective object you choose yourself. You do not need an intermediary who profits from your fear.
• Get a second opinion without leading. If you want another reading, do not mention the curse. Ask a general question about your situation. If the first reader was right, a second should notice something similar. In practice, curse diagnoses almost never replicate.
• Look at the ordinary explanations, too. List what has gone wrong. Next to each item, write the most ordinary cause. Bad runs feel targeted, but clusters of misfortune happen to everyone, and grief, stress and poor sleep make them feel like a pattern.

Love Spells and “Return Your Lover” Work

“Do love spells work?” is one of the most searched questions in this area, and it leads to the same pattern. A seller promises to bring back an ex or make a specific person fall in love, for a fee. Then the spell needs “strengthening”. Then the person “has a block” that needs removing.

Three things are worth knowing:

1. There is no evidence that a paid spell can override another person’s choices. People do sometimes come back, which is exactly why these offers work: the seller takes credit for what happens anyway and blames “resistance” for what does not.
2. Many practitioners reject this kind of work on their own terms. Within contemporary witchcraft and pagan practice, spells aimed at bending a particular person’s will are widely regarded as unethical, and many working practitioners refuse to cast them.
3. The upsell structure is identical to curse removal. A single fee that turns into a series of fees, plus secrecy and urgency, is the warning sign regardless of what the work is called.

If your real question is whether someone will come back, a straightforward reading on that question, with no paid “work” attached, is a very different thing. Our guides on signs your ex is coming back and no contact cover that ground.

What a Responsible Reader Does Instead

Not every reader who mentions “heavy energy” is running a scam. Readers sometimes describe a difficult period in symbolic language. The difference is what comes next.

A responsible reader	A curse-removal seller
Describes a difficult period as something you can move through	Describes a curse that only they can lift
Suggests ordinary steps: rest, support, a counsellor, time	Sells candles, rituals, “work” or cleansing
Has one price: the reading you already agreed to	Introduces new fees that keep growing
Encourages you to talk to people you trust	Tells you to keep it secret
Leaves the decision with you, with no deadline	Sets a deadline and warns of worse to come
Stays on the platform where you booked	Moves you to private chat, cash or gift cards

On the major reading platforms, sessions are billed through the platform at a listed rate, and you can report a reader through support. If a reader on any platform offers you paid curse removal or asks you to pay them privately, end the session, take screenshots and report it. That protects the next person too.

The Law: Where Curse Removal Stands

Laws vary, and this is general information, not legal advice.

• New York. Penal Law § 165.35 makes “fortune telling” a class B misdemeanor. It covers accepting a fee to tell fortunes, or to use claimed occult powers to answer questions, give advice or “exorcise, influence or affect evil spirits or curses”, with an exception for performances given purely for entertainment (NY Senate). A bill to repeal and replace it was introduced in December 2025 (A9387). Large cases are usually charged as grand larceny.
• Pennsylvania. Fortune telling for gain is an offence under 18 Pa.C.S. § 7104, a third-degree misdemeanor, and it was among the charges in the 2025 Jenkintown case above.
• The free-speech line. US courts have held that fortune telling itself is protected speech. Maryland’s highest court struck down a county ban on paid fortune telling in Nefedro v. Montgomery County (2010), noting that fraud can be handled by fraud laws (ACLU summary). In practice, the crime is the deception and the taking of money, not the reading.
• United Kingdom. The Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 was repealed in 2008 and replaced by the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, which cover misleading and aggressive commercial practices, including by psychics. Since 6 April 2025 those rules have been carried into Part 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, with the same core tests.
• Canada. The old Criminal Code offence of pretending to practise witchcraft (section 365) was repealed by Bill C-51, which received Royal Assent on 13 December 2018. Two days earlier, Ontario police had used it to charge a woman accused of seeking money to protect a client’s family from danger (NPR). Curse-removal scams are now prosecuted under the general fraud offence.

The practical point: you do not need to prove anything supernatural to report a curse-removal seller. You only need to show that money was taken through a false claim and pressure.

If You Have Already Paid

Act quickly. The full steps are in the money-back and reporting guide, but the short version is:

1. Card payment: contact your card issuer and dispute the charge. Under US law, billing-error disputes generally need to reach the issuer within 60 days of the statement that showed the charge.
2. Gift cards: call the company that issued the card immediately, report the scam and ask for the funds to be frozen. Keep the cards and receipts.
3. Bank transfer, wire, Zelle or a payment app: call your bank or the provider right away and report it as fraud.
4. Cash or valuables handed over: report it to local police as theft. Bring your timeline and evidence.
5. Report it: in the US, at ReportFraud.ftc.gov; in the UK, to Report Fraud (0300 123 2040); in Canada, to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (1-888-495-8501).
6. Watch for the second scam. People who have been scammed are often contacted by “recovery” services promising to get the money back for a fee. The FTC warns that legitimate organisations do not charge you to recover a refund.

If Someone You Love Is Caught Up in This

If a parent, partner or friend is paying someone to remove a curse, arguing about whether curses exist usually backfires, because it pushes them closer to the person who “understands”. What tends to work better:

• Start with the money, not the belief. “I’m not saying you’re wrong about the energy. I’m worried about how much this is costing.”
• Name the secrecy. “Did they tell you not to tell anyone? Why would real help need to be secret?”
• Offer a free alternative inside their own tradition. A priest, pastor, imam, rabbi or respected elder can address the spiritual fear without a price tag.
• Help with the practical steps. Sit with them while they call the bank or the card company.
• Keep the door open. Shame keeps people paying. Make it easy to come back to you.

FAQs

A psychic told me I have a curse. What should I do?

Do not pay for any removal, cleansing, candle work or ritual, and do not hand over cash, jewellery or gift cards to be “cleansed”. Save every message and receipt, write down what was said and when, and talk it over with someone you trust before you go back. A curse diagnosis followed by a paid fix is the core pattern in documented psychic fraud cases. If you have already paid, contact your card issuer or payment provider quickly and report it.

Can a psychic really remove a curse for money?

There is no evidence that paid curse removal does anything, and the pattern of a curse diagnosis followed by an escalating fee is the central feature of convicted psychic fraud cases in the US, including Rose Marks (over $17.8 million, about 10 years in federal prison) and Sylvia Mitchell (5 to 15 years). Religious and folk traditions that recognise curses or the evil eye typically handle them through prayer, blessings or simple rituals that are free or low-cost and done once.

How do I know if I am cursed?

A run of bad luck feels personal, but clusters of misfortune are statistically normal, and research shows stress and uncertainty make everyone more likely to look for hidden causes. Before accepting a curse explanation, list what has gone wrong and the ordinary cause of each item. If you belong to a faith tradition, speak to its clergy, who do not charge for prayer or blessing. If you feel hopeless or unable to cope, speak to a doctor or counsellor.

Do love spells work?

There is no evidence that a paid spell can make a specific person love you or come back. Many practitioners within witchcraft and pagan traditions themselves regard spells aimed at a particular person’s will as unethical. Paid “return your lover” spells are a common entry point for the same escalating-fee pattern seen in curse-removal fraud.

Is curse removal illegal?

It depends where you are. New York Penal Law § 165.35 makes it a class B misdemeanor to accept a fee to remove curses or evil spirits, outside of entertainment. Pennsylvania has a fortune-telling offence. Most large cases are prosecuted as theft, larceny or fraud. US courts have held that fortune telling itself is protected speech, so the crime is the deception and the taking of money, not the reading.

I already paid a psychic to remove a curse. Can I get my money back?

Sometimes, and speed matters. Card payments can be disputed with your card issuer, generally within 60 days of the statement for billing-error disputes under US law. Gift cards and wire transfers must be reported to the issuer or transfer company immediately. Report the fraud to local police and to your national fraud-reporting service, and be wary of anyone who offers to recover the money for a fee.

What does a genuine psychic do if they sense negative energy?

A responsible reader may describe a heavy or difficult period, but frames it as something you can work through, suggests ordinary steps such as rest, support or professional help, and never attaches a new fee, a deadline or a demand for secrecy to it. The moment a “diagnosis” comes with a price tag for the cure, you are no longer in a reading.

Where to Go From Here

If you still want guidance on the situation that brought you to a reader in the first place, that is a reasonable thing to want. Choose a platform where every minute is billed at a listed rate and every reader can be reported, set a budget before you start, and walk away from anyone who sells you a fix. Our Kasamba review explains how one large platform handles pricing, transcripts and complaints, and 13 things to know before you pay for a reading covers the rest.

Sources

Belief and psychology

1. Gershman, B. (2022). Witchcraft beliefs around the world: An exploratory analysis. PLOS ONE, 17(11): e0276872. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0276872
2. Keinan, G. (1994). Effects of stress and tolerance of ambiguity on magical thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(1), 48–55. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.67.1.48

Cases

3. Broward Palm Beach New Times (2014). Rose Marks, Fort Lauderdale psychic behind $17 million fraud, sentenced to ten years. browardpalmbeach.com
4. Miami New Times (2013). Rose Marks, psychic family matriarch, found guilty on 14 counts of fraud. miaminewtimes.com
5. Associated Press via Fox News (2013). NYC psychic gets prison in 6-figure scam case. foxnews.com
6. ABA Journal. Psychic who bilked man out of $550K is sentenced to probation. abajournal.com
7. US Department of Justice (2016). Justice Department permanently shuts down international psychic mail fraud scheme. justice.gov
8. WYMT / Gray News (16 October 2025). 2 charged in $600,000 psychic fortune-telling scheme that promised to lift curses. wymt.com

Law

9. New York Penal Law § 165.35, Fortune telling. nysenate.gov
10. New York State Assembly Bill A9387 (2025–2026 session). legislation.nysenate.gov
11. Nefedro v. Montgomery County, 996 A.2d 850 (Md. 2010). Opinion PDF
12. NPR (19 December 2018). Ontario woman charged with ‘fake witchcraft’ 2 days before Canada scrapped that law. npr.org
13. Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (UK). legislation.gov.uk

Getting help

14. Federal Trade Commission. What to do if you were scammed. consumer.ftc.gov
15. Federal Trade Commission. Refund and recovery scams. consumer.ftc.gov