Psychic scam drains $96K from Ontario woman — told her bad energy was going to be 'buried in the lake'

Nancy’s story isn’t rare, and it isn’t harmless. Fraud that plays on fear and grief cost Canadians more than $704 million in 2025, with reported losses since 2022 topping $2.4 billion. The Competition Bureau warns that figure represents only a fraction of the real damage, since only 5% to 10% of frauds are ever reported.

For Canadians who see psychics, or who have a parent or friend who does, Nancy’s experience is a clear illustration of how a low-cost service can turn into a financial trap — and what to watch for before it does.

How did a $30 session become a $96,000 loss?

Nancy’s first reading was cheap and casual. But once she was in the chair, she says the psychic told her she had “very bad black magic” working against her — a curse he said would leave her in a wheelchair, then kill her. Removing just one spirit, he told her, would cost $25,000; he claimed he would seal it in a container and bury it in a lake. Then he told her there were seven more spirits left to remove.

By the time it was over, Nancy had paid $96,000, and she said nothing about her health or her circumstances had actually changed. When the psychic’s business later moved locations, calls went unanswered and messages went unreturned.

Why do scams like this work on people who are grieving or unwell?

Psychic fraud tends to follow the same playbook as many of the scams tracked by the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC), the federal body that collects fraud reports from across the country: fear, urgency and emotional manipulation, rather than a straightforward ask for money. A major warning sign, according to the CAFC, is any suggestion that a loved one will get sick, die, lose money or leave unless the target keeps paying. Grief, illness and isolation — all of which Nancy describes — are exactly the conditions fraud experts point to as raising someone’s risk.

Relationship-style frauds built on emotional manipulation cost Canadians more than $63 million in 2025 alone, and investment fraud remains the single costliest category, at $351 million. Psychic scams aren’t tracked as their own category, which means cases like Nancy’s likely aren’t fully reflected in the official numbers at all.

Why won’t police always step in?

One of the more frustrating realities in cases like Nancy’s is that psychic fraud can sit in a legal grey zone. Because clients agree to pay for a service, and intent to defraud can be difficult to prove, police don’t always investigate. That leaves victims with few practical options for recovering money once it’s gone, which makes prevention, not recovery, the most reliable protection Canadians have.

What should Canadians watch for and do?

A few practical steps can limit the damage before it starts:

• Treat a session fee that keeps growing as a red flag, not a normal part of the service
• Be skeptical of any claim that a curse, spirit or debt requires an escalating series of payments to resolve
• Set a hard dollar limit before a reading begins, and walk away if the psychic pushes past it
• Check in on older relatives or friends who are grieving, isolated or unwell, since fraudsters specifically target people going through those experiences
• Report suspected fraud to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501, even if police decline to investigate, since that data helps flag patterns and warn other Canadians

Nancy’s loss can’t be undone. But her decision to speak out, even anonymously, adds one more data point to a growing picture: fraud in Canada is rising, and it increasingly hides inside services people think of as harmless entertainment. The clearest defence isn’t a bigger bank account or a sharper eye for con artists — it’s recognizing that any request tied to fear, secrecy or an ever-growing bill is reason enough to stop paying and start asking questions.