The Peculiar Truth about the Psychic Friends Network

• 1991: In the late, late hours when most television viewers were fast asleep, an infomercial vaguely resembling a talk show aired. The offscreen announcer stated, “And now your host, five-time Grammy winner, Miss Dionne Warwick.”

• The accomplished pop singer, then in her early fifties, was best known for singing Burt Bacharach tunes during her heyday in the 1960s. She strode onto the set to canned applause. Ms. Warwick then welcomed viewers to the Psychic Friends Network, a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-per-week service in which anyone could speak directly to a clairvoyant medium.

• Ms. Warwick then sat to chat with her “guest,” the Psychic to the Stars, Linda Georgian.

• A 900 number remained onscreen; callers would automatically be charged $3.99 per minute from their telephone company (that’s over $9 per minute today).

• Thanks to Dionne Warwick appearing on the 30-minute informercials, the Psychic Friends Network became a huge moneymaker.

• To almost no one’s surprise, it was also revealed to be a scam.

• The practice of divination goes back thousands of years. The Bible contains a reference to the Witch of Endor. In more recent history, American and British mediums can be traced back to the 1800s with the Modern Spiritualist Movement. The tiny hamlet of Lily Dale, NY is a private town designated expressly for psychics that dates back to its founding in 1879.

• Today, storefronts in nearly every city and town across the US advertise palm readers and fortune tellers. Some US states require mediums to acquire licenses. Statistics estimate that the US had well over 100,000 registered mediums in 2024.

• A Baltimore businessman named Michael Lasky created the Psychic Friends Network. His company, Inphomation Communication, Inc. set up the logistics, including the 900 number, the phone systems, and television production.

• The infomercials ran on late night TV 12,000 times at a cost of $500,000 per week. But the paid phone calls generated on average $2.5 million per week.

• Lasky’s company hired all of the phone operators. Almost none of them were psychics.

• Actors were given scripts to read. They were encouraged to develop characters and speak in vague terms. Deceptive practices were used to keep callers on the line so they would rack up more fees.

• February 1998: Inphomation Communication filed for bankruptcy. The Psychic Friends Network folded.

• Dionne Warwick admitted that she only joined the company because she needed the money after her singing career had taken a downward turn.

• Shortly after, however, a new company arose: the Psychic Readers Network. Its informercials featured a supposedly Jamaican-born clairvoyant named Miss Cleo. She spoke with a Caribbean accent and used the catchphrase “The cards never lie.”

• Her real name was Youree Dell Harris, an actress from Los Angeles by way of Seattle.

• Her company used essentially the same fraudulent business practices as Inphomation - paid actors reading from scripts and keeping callers on the line. The average bill was $60 per call.

• The federal government shut down the Psychic Readers Network in 2003.

• Whether you believe in clairvoyants and mediums or not, it doesn’t take a psychic to see that it has always been incredibly lucrative.