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Times Square Psychics Busted For Charging $1,000 To Remove "Negativity" With "Platinum Candles"
By
Jen Chung
Published Feb 4, 2016
Modified Feb 4, 2016
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By
Jen Chung
Published Feb 4, 2016
Modified Feb 4, 2016
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Two women were arrested on Tuesday after being accused of committing "fortune telling fraud" in Times Square. A psychic and her daughter-in-law told an undercover operative working for a private investigator that she was plagued with a curse—and would need to pay them $1,000 to remove it.
NYC psychics range from the friendly palm reader to high-level operators who can con people out of $200,000 and even well over $700,000. In this incident, private eye Bob Nygaard got involved because his client—a "Manhattan corporate executive" forked over $55,000 to the psychic after her husband left her for another woman.
Nygaard arranged for an operative to visit Tammy Vlado, who was calling herself "Psychic Gina," and her daughter-in-law Pam Ulfie. He explained, "Vlado and Ufie attempted to con the undercover operative into believing that she was being plagued by 'a curse' and 'negativity' and they attempted to elicit $1,000 from the operative in order to remove the alleged 'curse/negativity.' Vlado and Ufie claimed that they needed to burn ten 'platinum candles' as part of the alleged 'curse/negativity' removal work."
The operative paid $45 for psychic readings and $400 to start the process of removing the curse. Nygaard then filed reports against the con women, who allegedly violated New York State Penal Law section 165.35 (Fortunetelling). The cops and Manhattan DA's office agreed, and the women were surrendered to the police.
Vlado's tactics have been exposed in Crime Watch Daily videos (she paid the executive with the cheating husband back):
Vlado has been accused of other psychic-related scams in Manhattan. Psychics who have been prosecuted have admitted it's all lies.
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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