A look at the claims, predictions and behavior of a media "psychic".
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A look at the claims, predictions and behavior of a media "psychic".
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Email: A Request For a RefundA woman requests a refund for a disappointing reading with Chris Dufresne. 
'Re: Request for Refund' letter from Sylvia Browne Corp. BackgroundOn January 2nd 2007, a woman had a phone reading with Chris Dufresne, Sylvia Browne's son. Here is a transcript of one of the questions asked and answered during that reading:
At this point, the client decided that Dufresne was not psychic. This had been a test question, one which the client hoped Dufresne would answer correctly, so that she would know for certain that he was truly psychic. Dufresne had not answered her correctly. The client reasoned that were Dufresne really psychic, he would have known who the one who she "loved almost most of anything in this world" was. And she knew that, even in Sylvia Browne's philosophy/cosmology of reincarnation, she (the client) could not have been married in a previous life to her much-loved, recently deceased, pet dog. This article describes the process the woman went through in an attempt to get a refund. The EmailsThe First EmailLater that same day, she sent the following email to me:
I thanked her, but told her that I would hold off on putting her email up on the web site so that it would not hurt her chances of getting a refund. I also said the following:
The Second Email
The Third Email
After this, she traveled out of state to be with her father, undergoing chemotherapy for stage four cancer in his lungs and head. The Fourth EmailWhen she returned home, she sent me the following:
Request For RefundI received the packet in the mail a few days later. It contained:
(Note: I have typed in the text of the letter, so there may be errors in it. Click here to view a scan of the original letter) Rather than insert my comments into the letter, I will save them for the Analysis section below.
AnalysisFirst, this refund process strikes me as intentionally complicated, designed specifically to discourage a client from pursuing a refund. It seems to me that Sylvia Browne Corp. is hoping that the client will simply give up out of frustration, as happened with this woman. While this might make sense from a purely financial standpoint, it hardly seems like the "spiritual" thing to do. But that's not all. Notice that the refund is to be based entirely on the accuracy of future predictions. No matter how inaccurate and incorrect the reading was about things in the past or present, that apparently does not factor in at all. For example, no refund would be given for telling this woman that she married her dog in a past life. I have listened to the tape of this reading. Most of the predictions made in it were vague, including the time frames involved. This would make it impossible for this client to point to many predictions which "did not come to pass," since Dufresne didn't tell her when they would come to pass. It should be noted that, according to the client's emails above, the person who sent her this letter listened to the tape of the reading before sending the letter. It is possible that the letter was specifically written to take advantage of the vagueness of the predictions in the reading. It is also possible that this is the standard refund process, and the reading was intentionally vague in order to take advantage of it. Also, the analogy equating Browne and Dufresne's services with that of attorneys and psychiatrists bears some examination. It is true that results are not guaranteed with lawyers and psychiatrists. So to compensate for this, and as a means of protecting consumers, these professions are strictly licensed and heavily regulated by their governing bodies. Those governing bodies have rigid codes of conduct and standards of behavior for their members. When you consult an attorney or psychiatrist, you know that they have had years of training and education in their profession, and that they had to pass a number of regulatory and educational requirements before they could even begin to practice. Before consulting one of these professionals, you can check with their governing bodies to see if they are properly registered, and to see if they have any disciplinary history. If you feel that one of these professionals has not provided you with the services they were supposed to provide, or that they violated the code of ethics of their profession, you can contact these governing bodies in an effort to resolve the situation. These professionals can lose their license to practice if it is determined they do not maintain professional standards, or that they have behaved in a manner which is not in the best interest of their clients/patients. Contrast this with "psychics" like Browne and Dufresne, who have none of these safeguards in place. No governing body, no licensing, no required training, no professional code of ethics. A consumer has no means of recourse if they feel the psychic has behaved unprofessionally, or that the psychic has not provided the services which he or she promised. No, Browne and Dufresne's services cannot be equated with that of lawyers or psychiatrists, no matter how much they would like us to think so. ConclusionThis woman was (and still is) in a vulnerable place in her life. She gave Dufresne $450, hoping to find help and hope, and what she got instead was a few minutes of vague predictions, generic medical advice, and incorrect answers to some key questions she had devised in order to test his abilities. For Dufresne and his people to insist on her jumping through these hoops in order to get back even a portion of her money seems like a cruel and unsympathetic thing to do, especially to someone currently dealing with the death of a parent. But perhaps I am being too hard on Christopher Dufresne in this. After all, the woman did not tell him that her father was dying of stage four cancer. So how could we expect him to know that? After all, he isn't psychic. Related LinksClicking on any of these links will load a separate browser window for viewing the linked page. StopSylviaBrowne.com is not responsible for the content of any of these linked pages.
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