It’s about damn time!
http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/07/25/psychic.lawsuit/index.html
How soon before the commercials will be discontinued is what I want to know!
Just a silly little aside…
Thank you for posting this thread. A co-worker and I were talking about her yesterday, but couldn’t remember her name. Only thing I could come up with was “Clarice”, but I knew that wasn’t right. I spied the thread title and my answer was right there!!
Incidentally, I don’t think this is the first time some psychic company has pulled this kind of trick. Seems like whenever they say that the first x minutes are free, you know you’re not going to get any information from them in that time.
Nice quote in the article, though, about how they “should have seen it coming.” :: snort ::
Let us all bow our heads a moment, and try to contain the fierce joy we all feel at the possible demise of such a hideous affront to dignity, common sense, and the taste of the American television viewer.
I’m giddy as a schoolgirl at the possibility that those ignorance-peddling snake-oil salesmen will be forced to stop the carpet-bombing ad campaign they’ve mounted. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I can be a rather grim cynical person. Oh sure I laugh at times, I have fun with my friends, but I’m not what you would think of as giddy.
I giggled when I heard this on the news. I’m not sure I’ve ever giggled before in my life. I kinda liked it.
“Miss Cleo should have seen it coming.”
snortgigglechucklelaughguffaw
Awww… I’m sad. Miss Cleo is COOL!
So that’s why she’s stopped calling me every morning around 11. That was really starting to piss me off (I sleep days).
You do know, of course, that nature dislikes a vacuum and that if the Ms. Cleo commercials are removed, there will be something else to replace it.
It started with Dion Warwick’s “Psychic Friends”, then some other Psychic hotline (I don’t remember the name), now Ms. Cleo. Somone else will start in.
Maybe John Edwards will start advertising the “Dead Relatives Hotline” at 4.99 per minute.
Or maybe Miss Cleo will be a guest on Jonathan Edwards’ show.
You have to admit that some of those commercials are pretty funny, especially those that give you a sound snippet of a caller’s conversation with Miss Cleo.
Cleo: "Now I see bah da tree of cups dat you wanna know which one is da father of your baby, mon.
Caller: “Yeah, I don’t know which one it is.”
Cleo: “It ees de ugly one, da one wit da dimple on 'is chin.”
What insight.
Ha! I watched a half hour of her “infomercial” last night.
One guy calls, says he’s going to have work done on his house.
Cleo says, theres one guy bidding, he’s short and stocky. His bids a way too high, watch out for him."
Oh yah, HOW on EARTH could she have known this??
When someone has work done on their house, who would’ve ever thought there would be bidding?
AND that one of the bids would be a little high? And from a short and stocky guy yet??
How many short and stocky guys actually work on hosues?
The woman’s amazin!
“You know I’m tellin ya the troot mon!”
Oh, I like those Miss Cleo ads . . . Unlike most of those pompous “psychics,” she gets the joke and seems to know exactly how full of shit she is. Besides, I like hearing her accent veer wildly from Jamaican to Irish: “De tarot cards weel tell ya da future, faith an’ begorrah!”
Well someone has made an attempt to end this threat against humanity.
A friend of mine who is struggling to put himself through college in NYC has taken a part-time job as a phone psychic. His take on it?
“The pay is great, and you just take notes on what people tell you and just tell them the same thing about 20 minutes later. They’ll be blown away.” (But don’t you get questions asking for advice, or medical help?) “Yeah- the standard reply for medical questions is ‘The stars decree that you should see a doctor.’”
So, phone psychics are just like the SDMB, it seems. 
I should ask him how his job is going after this Cleo-fiasco.
Now if we could only get John Edwards off the air.
I think the citizens of Jamaica should sue her for mutilating the accent.
No, you mean that isn’t a REAL Jamaican accent, mon?
I want to see a lawsuit from someone saying he did not get to talk to the “real” Miss Cleo. If I ever call her, I do not want one of her helpers. I want the real deal.
A former–she quit because she had enough of trying to keep callers on for more than three minutes–employee of Access Resource Services Inc. claims that she was told Miss Cleo is just an actress hired for their commercials and does not take phone calls. Miss Cleo does have an extension but no outside calls will be routed to that extension, even if that extension is asked for.
Even if they really rake Miss Cleo and the whole outfit over the coals and force them to shut down, the ads could be on for a long time. Do you remember real estate guru William McCorkle? The feds busted his operation, totally shut them down, froze all his American accounts, and yet McCorkle’s infomercials were still running months later.
The fact is that as long as there are people who want to believe, and people willing to fleece them, some other psychic line will be waiting in the wings to become the next big thing. And even if all that superstitious nonsense/con game mercifully went away, there would be something to take its place–whether it’s the real estate scheme with the two dwarves as spokesmen, or some MLM company with a washed-up actor as a spokesman, a new Richard Simmons diet/exercise routine, or some ab machine…there’s always going to be something to saturate the airwaves at 2AM.
P.S. Why doesn’t the psychic ever play the lottery?
James Randi’s website says that she can be seen in old episodes of Miami Vice with the same horrible “Jamaican” accent.