Bad Apples

It’s been a crazy few days. The full moon has really done a number on me. So this morning when I received a twitter response from an astrologer telling me I received a free astrological reading, I thought COOL. I’ve been thinking about getting an astrological reading for years and just made an appointment with the very talented Cassandra Butler, but she isn’t available until July 24th. So, what could it hurt to see what this is about… it is FREE after all.

So I clicked the link. A new page popped up and I was asked for my email address and birthdate. Made sense because both would be needed to complete an astrological chart. What wasn’t asked for was my birth time. Odd. The reader wouldn’t be able to know my rising sign. I dismissed this, maybe it’ll be asked for later.

After I hit submit, I found out I was added to the mailing list. Eh, for a free reading, I can unsubscribe if need be. Nothing in life is free, right?

But then came my first red flag that something might not be totally on the up and up. With my confirmation, there was a request for my phone number. With this request came fine print. By providing my number I would be willing to receive automated and sales calls. I promptly declined this. While I am open to received spam, I’m not willing to accept phone calls.

At this point I was skeptical, but still hopeful. Then I got an e-mail from the reader with “first impressions.” In this e-mail, the reader indicated that they felt I was in “some kind of emergency.” Followed in the next sentence, “I specifically felt that you live (or work?) in, or near, a city beginning with the letter “E”, maybe it is East Aurora?” In the following paragraph, there is a link to connect to a talisman so we can get a better connection and communicate telepathically.

Oh goodness… you don’t have to have my spidey senses to see all the red flags.

Now let me break this down and why I feel like this is a scam. First off, the “free” reading was in response to my tweet about sticking to my values and beliefs. Which would indicate something might not me “right” in my life. Also, it would be unlikely I would click for a reading if something wasn’t going on. It’s rare for someone to get a reading if everything is hunky dorey.

Were you impressed that he mentioned East Aurora? Yes. I AM in fact working out of my office East Aurora today. But, no need to be impressed that he knew that. While I’m not a computer genius, I do know enough about computers to know that when a submission is made on a website the recipient can trace the IP address. That IP address will tell you the town (and perhaps even what part of town) where a person is.

As for the talisman…. Wondering what it is? Me too. But, I DID NOT click the link he provided to download the file. (My husband, the techie, would be very proud!) Why didn’t I download it? The download most likely is spyware. This spyware would allow the reader to gather personal information about myself that they could then use to lead me to believe they were very talented OR worse, take bank numbers, passwords, etc to steal my identity as well as my money.

This makes me sad all around, as this is a stigma I fight all the time. One reason why I don’t use the word psychic on my literature. Bad apples like the Miss Chleos and this individual place question on the whole profession. My recommendation from you… be leary. If someone comes to you, they probably aren’t legit. I’ll wait til the 24th for my reading. I know it’ll be a good one.

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