Somnus,
First, there is a difference between a reader being able to research a client on a call-in line and one that is reading for a client that has made an appointment. I took the initial comment to be applicable in all scenarios and not just in some. I too realize that when making an appointment one has to divulge at the very least a phone number, or an email address, but even those pieces of information do not necessarily give out an identity.
I have had appointment calls and I use a cell phone (not listed online) and an email address that is not listed either, or certainly not one that divulges my real identity. I will agree that there are people that use readers that do not think about identity when calling and could be offering far more information than they should, inadvertently.
My comment was more aimed at suggesting that I don't think these $2.00 - $4.00 readers have that much skill to fleece the public by performing research while reading. That is not to say that they can't do searches before a reading, or before an appointment, but
during a reading I find that a little difficult to accept.
You are also quite wrong in your assessment of me and my experiences too. But that is just another example of how a snippet of information can lead someone down entirely the wrong path. And that was really exactly my point! I offered a list of more than 150 readers in the last week that I said clearly that I would not call again, because I did not believe they worked for me. Does that make them frauds? Perhaps. I'd rather say that whatever
"gift" those readers have is no more attuned than the gift of "intuition" that I have - that we all have. That's all.
Because I still believe that some readers are gifted, you assume I do not think that there are readers earning a living from clients that do not have enough skill to call themselves psychic, but you are wrong. I realize that there are a lot of readers that draw from their intuition and draw from their clients rather than from spirit. Does that mean they have no skill? No. Does that mean that the skills they have are garden-variety and no more psychic than my own intuition? Yes.
I have read with many readers and I have had readings that have suggested that certain thins will happen for certain reasons and at certain times. I am inclined to believe that in the vast majority of my readings, and especially in the first 50, I gave far too much information to the readers, so I have dismissed them entirely. I also know that I cannot count any subsequent readings from those readers because if they have the type of memory I do, they will remember enough from that first reading to fill in gaps and data such that any subsequent reading could be influenced from the past. Then there are a whole host of readers that impressed me with bits and pieces of information that I did not offer them, that they must have had some sort of skill to retrieve, but were inconsistent and offered other information that is contrary to fact. SO those get put in a separate pile.
I still believe that there is a small group that I consult still that collectively offer plausible answers to my ever-present questions. There is no ONE psychic that gives it all, but a team that provides the explanations that makes sense for me. Much akin to a team of specialists treating a patient in a hospital. One looks at one set of symptoms and area of specialty, another at another and so on.
Am I still a believer that some individuals have a skill to see what I cannot? Yes. Why? Because I have witnessed personally being told what is going to happen long before it has become a reality in more cases than one.
My first experience with this was more than 20 years ago, when the only access to a psychic that I ever had was to one that was listed in the front pages of my local telephone book. It was an 800 number, so nobody local, and I cannot remember how much it cost but it was about .99 cents a minute to consult a psychic on this service. I called, - I did not ask for a particular individual - just someone came on the line and began to read for me. Once again, I was naiive. I told her my name and asked if I was going to reconcile with a person who was at that time my ex. The call wasn't more than 5-10 minutes long, if memory serves me well, but she gave me bad news that my ex and I would not get back together. I was disappointed and shared that with her. At the end of the call, she assured me that this was for the best; that spirit had someone coming into my life in the next few months and this relationship with the ex needed to end so that I would be available for this new person. She even asked if I knew someone that is dark-haired, dark-eyed, continental and interesting. She went on to describe that man and the 2 children he had - 2 young boys, that we would travel and marry. I dismissed the reading immediately because I knew no one like that and I could not believe the fanciful lifestyle she presented that I would live with this person - jet-setting around the globe, living in two countries etc. It was a fairytale!!!
One year later, and quite by accident - a fluke really, an acquaintance of mine that I met at a party asked me to help him out with a project that he was struggling with. He actually asked the entire room of people for help. I had never worked with this person before but I had some vacation to burn up and nothing planned. He needed someone to help pick up some people from the airport and transport them to their hotels and back to his place of business the next week, twice a day. I agreed to help.
It was during that 2 week period that I met "ABC"- a man that visited my state for 3 weeks only; a man that lived in another country with his two small children - 2 boys; a man that sent me a letter/card after he left the US after a 3 week visit to thank me; a man that I had zero contact with and then reconnected by snail mail one year later one month before I relocated to my current hometown in entirely a different part of this country; a man with whom I would then enter an international relationship with that turned into a 5 year engagement; with whom I would live both in his country and he with me in mine for a period of 5 years before we eventually married. And there's more to that story of course. But this was a prediction given to me, and the only difference that I can see between that prediction and all the others I have been given recently from psychics I read with now, is that
I dismissed it.
I think that is a necessary element to predictions that can explain why some occur and others don't.
On average, how slow are your readers in answering your initial question? Reason I ask is because I seriously doubt these readers are that adept in google research and in providing a reasonable scenario to anything asked of them, even if they are completely bogus. I have been in market research most of my life. I like to think I can find a needle in a haystack and oftentimes do as a regular part of my daily work, but I can tell you this, in order to do that, I need at least a bit of time, access for both hands on a laptop and seriously fast broadband to the Internet.
My experience with these readers is that they are sitting in their homes taking calls. I doubt they have that sort of set up to access background information on each of their callers and the ability to listen to them and read and comprehend and comprise a reasonable response as you are suggesting. Just my .20 cents!I don't see how where you live helps the reader in any way. I've never been asked this at all. What would be the purpose of this question?
From what I understand, some will use it to do a quick Google or even Facebook search on you. This is what I've heard; I have no idea how many of them actually do this (though I wouldn't be surprised to learn that at least some of the fake ones do).
Generally, the readers I've heard complained about who do this are the ones who take appointments in advance and request that information up front. Also, even some of the hotline readings I've experienced begin with fluff and don't get into the meaty part until a few minutes in. If they're quick enough, yes. I believe there are plenty who can use that three minutes to find just enough to "wow" you with little tidbits of information, if you have any sort of online presence. With the right online tools, it's really not that difficult at all - I've looked up potential boyfriends and found their social media profiles in under five minutes with just a first name and general area they live in. If you're making a living off of proving to people that you know things about them without them telling you, I would imagine you'd get very good at it very fast. I'm sure more than a few readers are taking calls from their computers - I've heard plenty of them typing in the background during calls (granted, they were probably taking notes and not doing a quick search on me, but they are in front of a computer.) And who doesn't have broadband internet these days?
I'm not saying all readers do this. I'm saying there are probably some readers - who most likely aren't real - who do, and they're probably the ones on a hotline that waste time at the beginning of the call, or they're the ones on a private site who request that information in advance.
What I'm going to say next, please don't take this the wrong way. It's not meant as an attack or a criticism or anything like that. It's an observation. It appears that you tend to give readers in general the benefit of the doubt, despite your experiences with them, based on the posts I usually see from you. That's fine, and I'm glad that you can still hold onto that faith if that works for you. But also please understand that there are plenty of us who have grown rather cynical about the whole thing based on our experiences, and while I have not ruled out the possibility of psychic abilities being real - and in fact, there are still one or two that I legitimately feel might be gifted - I have no problem accepting that there are a lot of frauds out there, and I can think of a lot of different ways for them to exploit people. If you're dealing with a scam artist, they're going to be good at what they do, that's all I'm saying.
