Grifters annoyed by other grifters

At the same time, Tea said, psychic workers are often met with a distinct lack of sympathy when they talk about being the victims of fraud or impersonation. “There is a portion of the population who thinks our work isn’t real,” she said. Fortune-telling for a fee is a misdemeanor offense in many places; in New York, for instance, the laws on the books require that it be clearly denoted as only for “entertainment or amusement” purposes. (Roma people, some of whom adapted fortune-telling as one mode of survival, face particularly intense stigma and persecution for practicing that profession, as well as simply existing.) But even then, she feels that people should be sympathetic to the issue of paying someone under false pretenses: “It’s not what you paid for. It’s just unethical, period. People should at least recognize that.”