We’ve all seen those ads where psychics demonstrate their ability to see untold hidden facts. They know when the caller is having an affair or that the caller’s husband has just lost their job. If you call their team of professional psychics, you can (allegedly) learn all about life, love, riches, and Bill Clinton for just $4.95 a minute.
After making all these promises, they flash “for entertainment purposes only” in small print. How can they promise one thing in their advertising and then take-back all those promises in the fine print. Isn’t this bait-and-switch advertising? Why are they allowed to make all those promises and not be held accountable when they can’t actually predict anything.
They can get away with it because lawmakers don’t think these guys are enough of a problem to crack down on Dionne Warwick and friends. Cecil covered this topic before (I’m not going to bother with the useless search engine; I’d have better luck asking the Psychic Friends Network for the url link), but a fair number of these “psychics” are ameteur psychologists, and if you listen to some of more realistic adds, you can tell that the “predictions” are mostly just relationship counseling.
Synonym: the word you use in place of a word you can’t spell.
I’ve always wondered why psychics advertise? Don’t they already know who’s going to call? And why do they ask your name when you call? Shouldn’t they already know?
There are two main reasons. First, some (most? all?) states have fraud laws making charging for fortune telling or psychic advise illegal, and psychic ads without the disclaimer would open the companies up to criminal action. Second, the disclaimer protects the company against the inevitable lawsuits which have been or will be filed against them by people who relied on the advise of the psychics and incured damages as a result. The affirmative defense of the companies is “we stated in our advertising that this was for entertainment purposes only.”