Date: Feature Week of November 24, 2002
Topic: Black Press Business/Economic
Author: William Reed
Article ID: article_ema112402a
MISS CLEO UNMASKED AND TAKEN OFF HOOK
Shaman Caught Shamming
Miss Cleo, a bewitching Jamaican most Americans know well from watching
late-night TV, has been "unhooked". For the past three years
the exotic Black shaman seemed to be on every channel of the television.
It was through the media that Miss Cleo's lilting West Indian accent
wiled her scam into millions of Americans' homes, subconscious and pocketbooks.
Now, Miss Cleo is off the airways and her phone line has been "turned
off" because of deceptive advertising and billing and collection
practices. Operators of her "entertainment" telemarketing
firm have agreed to cancel over $500 million in customer bills to settle
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that the services fleeced callers
promising mystical insights into love and money. The settlement requires
Miss Cleo's employers, two Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based companies, Access
Resource Services Inc. and Psychic Readers Network Inc., to stop using
pay-per-call numbers to sell soothsaying services.
Before being yanked off television and its phones, the service charged
nearly 6 million people an average of $80 a call through deceptive practices.
The government says the services' two owners, Steven Feder and Peter
Stolz, generated over $1 billion in revenues by way of unlawful merchandising
practices. The FTC accused the companies of false promises of free psychic
readings, tricky billing tactics and abusive telemarketing calls.
The advertisements promised free readings, but consumers calling the
toll-free 800-number were directed to a 900 number programmed to charge
$4.99 per minute. When connected, operators made calls last as long
as possible telling callers they would not be charged while on hold.
The FTC said many consumers received up to 10 automated messages a day
telling them that "Miss Cleo had a dream about them and they should
call back." In real life Miss Cleo is Youree Dell Harris, born
in Los Angeles Aug. 13, 1962. She's an actress who was employed as a
spokesperson for the organization. If Cleo took calls, she didn't take
many.
Although African Americans felt kinship with Miss Cleo, the operators
had little in common with Blacks. The operators' billion-dollar white-collar
crimes drew them no jail time, and few African Americans were hired
among the companies' national network of " telephone counselors".
Most of the hundreds of "psychic readers" employed by the
companies where white housewives working from their homes.
The state-of-the-art telemarketing system was configured so when an
800-call was initiated, it came into an Omaha-calling center and was
transferred to a 900-number system so charges could accrue each minute.
Also, the Omaha-based central computer searched through the list of
psychics logged onto the system looking to route the call to "counselors"
its records showed having the longest average call record.
Pay for each telephone psychic was good: $12 an hour. Providing "readings"
for 30 clients the average amount of time the company sought per call
would yield the service $2,400 and $360 for the psychic. Guidelines
of a typical call were: To use 22 cards of the tarot deck to prompt
conversations with callers. Each card was assigned an arbitrary number,
which the psychic used to get the caller to give them seven numbers
between zero and 21. Any number that the caller gave would correspond
to a specific tarot card. After psychic give a description provided
on the card, they'd use a leading question to elicit callers to speak
about how that information applied to them. As the caller responded,
the psychic tied the remaining cards to situations already disclosed.
The psychic's goal was to keep the caller on the line for an average
of 19 minutes, which minus three free minutes cost $80. The system's
multi-level organization allowed "trainers" that hired psychics
to earn a $3 per hour override on each psychic's production.
