What to do if you believe you have been scammed by James Higgins TV Psychic Medium or anyone else

In October 2018, Bad Psychics published an article entitled “Why you should avoid James Higgins Psychic Medium, which you can read here.

Much to even our surprise, it provoked a huge response – as you can see from the comments section. He now ranks as our most complained-about psychic ever with posts such as these:

Please note that all images can be clicked on and enlarged to make easier to read.

However, as appalling as his alleged behaviour is here, things have recently taken an even darker turn. In the last week alone, we have been flooded with messages, all telling very similar disturbing stories. We therefore felt it was important to do a follow-up article with information about this and advice on what to do if you ever make the mistake of paying for a reading from a psychic/medium.

James Higgins’s latest scheme

If you visit Mr. Higgins’s Facebook page, you’ll see that he has now amassed several thousand followers. A closer look will reveal how he has done so. He live-streams videos practically every day, asking people to send him messages if they want the chance to get a free reading. The word ‘free’ is guaranteed to grab people’s attention – and it’s also a sure-fire way of getting his page numbers up. Especially since he also tells his followers that they must share his videos and like his page to take part.

Needless to say, many people messaged him in the hope of winning. They then got responses like these:

And these:

And these:

Can you spot the differences?

Nope! Despite shameless claims such as “you are one of the first I feel drawn to”, and “I believe there is something you need to know”, they’re all identical automated replies – with just the recipients’ first names changed.   

But sad to say, many people did fall for this, clicked on the attached link which took them to his ‘Spirit HQ’ page, and paid around £32+ each for a reading.

It should be mentioned here that most of the customers only did so because they had suffered bereavements, were feeling very vulnerable, and were desperate to hear from loved ones again. In fact, to illustrate this, here is a selection of just a few of the distressed messages which we have received over the last few days.   

Think for a moment how despicable it is to take advantage of people who are grieving. But I’m afraid it gets worse. Because not only did his customers never receive their readings, they just got more spam when they tried to make enquiries:

And then to top everything off, they were blocked from his page when they asked for refunds!

As a result of all this, we’ve been inundated with messages from his customers asking us what to do.

Well, in answer to this, we have three pieces of advice.


1. Get Your Money Back

If you paid by PayPal, log in to your account and open a dispute in PayPal’s Resolution Center.

Information on how to do this is here on PayPal’s official site. https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/security/buyer-protection-resolution

And you can also find step-by-step instructions in this article:
https://medium.com/@grailed/how-to-file-a-paypal-claim-ae9372cb371f

If you paid via any other method, contact your bank or credit card company.

For those in the UK, you should be entitled to a refund under the ‘Chargeback Scheme’. But make sure you do this within 120 days of paying for a reading.

Further information can be found here on the Citizens’ Advice Bureau website: 
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/somethings-gone-wrong-with-a-purchase/getting-your-money-back-if-you-paid-by-card-or-paypal/


2. Report! Report! Report!

If you ever experience a situation like this with any (England/Wales-based) psychic, you MUST report them to Trading Standards!

If Trading Standards get enough complaints, they will investigate and can take the psychic to court or stop them operating.

To contact them, you must file a report via the Citizens’ Advice Bureau. Instructions are here: 
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/get-more-help/report-to-trading-standards/


3. NEVER EVER Pay For A Psychic Reading Again

I have looked closely into the psychic world for over 15 years (while Jon Donnis has investigated it for even longer). Neither of us has ever come across conclusive proof of anyone having psychic powers. In our experience, psychics/mediums always fall into one of two categories.

a) Deluded people who believe they have psychic powers
b) Con-artists/tricksters who exploit grieving and/or vulnerable people.

It’s a sad fact that happy people rarely consult psychics/mediums. The psychic market usually consists of people who are down on their luck for one reason or another, and are looking for someone to bring them hope. But believe me, a psychic or medium will never provide that! As the late great skeptic Robert S. Lancaster, among others, once observed, psychics/mediums will only:

i) Take money under false pretences from people who are in a very vulnerable state emotionally

ii) Make these vulnerable people so dependent on them that the victims will not be able to move on with their lives. Unfortunately, there have even been cases where victims have been scammed out of their life savings and ended up in debt because they believed what the psychics/mediums told them and kept going back for more.

iii) By inventing messages from people who have passed, the psychics/mediums will be stepping on the true memories of your loved ones.   

And on that note, I’ll end by saying that if you ever have problems or feel depressed for whatever reason, there is no shame in asking for help. There are professionals who can offer confidential support and unlike psychics/mediums, they will not charge you a penny.

If you are in the UK, you can contact the Samaritans for free on 116 123 or via their website: 
https://www.samaritans.org

Or if you are in the USA, you can call the Lifeline Network on 1-800-273-8255, again for free, or contact them via https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/talk-to-someone-now/ (N.B. This service is also available to those who may not be contemplating suicide).

Both phonelines are there for you 24/7 – day and night.


Addendum
As at the time of writing, James Higgins's main Facebook page has been deactivated. He has now moved his business to his Spirit HQ page, and is bizarrely blaming Facebook for “temporarily unpublishing” his Facebook page because of “high levels of engagement”. He also rather audaciously claims that he thinks he “holds a record in relation to levels of engagement and followers”. Make of that what you will.

In addition to that, some people have contacted us about a private Facebook account in his name (and with his photo) that appears to be messaging people and sending out friend requests.

However, we believe that this account is NOT actually James Higgins, but another scammer who is trying to cash in on fans/followers. See the screenshot.

Notice that this scammer wants money to be sent to the PayPal account of someone called Wycliffe Mutsami.

No doubt this is an impersonator from Africa. This is a VERY common trick that scammers (particularly from countries like Nigeria) use. They set up fake accounts in the names of celebrities or people who have a lot of Facebook followers and try to befriend their fans to get money out of them.

DO NOT accept any friend requests from this account or click on any (phishing) links it sends you. In fact, do not engage with it at all. Just block and report it.


--- The following paragraph is written by Jon Donnis---
Article written by someone who wishes to remain Anonymous, I have verified their identity.
Please understand that the amount of abuse someone gets for daring to speak out against people like James Higgins is huge, as such if you do want to be abusive you will be met with overwhelming kindness, facts, and knowledge. You wont scare us, you wont make us go away.

Why you should avoid James Higgins Psychic Medium

Source: Facebook/Google Images

"I recently had a run in with self proclaimed "Psychic Medium" James Higgins, and I thought it would be a good idea to look into him further, however since he had made certain rather nasty comments towards me, I thought it would be better if I asked someone else to write the article, so I asked a colleague here at BadPsychics, and the article below is written by them. As such I will say that any of the comments and opinions in the article below are those of the author." - Jon Donnis

As readers of Bad Psychics may be aware, we have various dealings with a woman called Deborah Davies over the years.

You can read the original article about her here, which reveals - among other things - the disgraceful claims she made about Madeleine McCann.

And don’t forget to check out the sequel, detailing the catfight she had with her former friend, Gail Cuffe who runs the ‘Readings by Gail’ Facebook page, (previously ‘Psychic123UKreadings’).

Alas, despite all of this, Ms Davies has continued to practise as a self-proclaimed psychic and medium. One of her latest schemes involves offering weekly horoscopes, which just happen to bear a curious resemblance to those on Russell Grant’s website.

Source: Facebook/Google Images/RusselGrant.mobi

Can you spot the differences?

Anyway, it now turns out that she is not the only person in her family to be making forays into the psychic world.  In autumn 2016, a series of posts appeared on her Facebook page, promoting her son, James Higgins. This struck me as a little odd as he was already 25 years old, and she had never indicated that he had any psychic ability before then.

In fact, one of the few times that she had mentioned him previously was when she publicised an event that he was due to host with someone from an inane reality show, back in 2014.

Source: Facebook/Google Images

However, it appears that this venture didn’t last long – as his Facebook page as an entertainment host/MC has since been deactivated. A cynic might be tempted to think that the sudden emergence of his alleged psychic ability very conveniently coincided with the failure of this business. Nevertheless, one must not jump to conclusions.  Let’s look at the evidence first before making our minds up as to whether James Higgins is the real deal or not.

To begin with, here are screenshots of Ms. Davies’s posts from last year – interspersed with my comments.

Source: Facebook/Google Images

So what do you think the odds of him creating his own psychic/mediumship Facebook page were?

Source: Facebook/Google Images

Oh, what a surprise! By the very next day, he had created a page.  And apparently, he had “no intention” of charging for his psychic services. Well, as we are about to see, that soon went out the window.

Source: Facebook/Google Images

As stated above, James was already 25 years old. Isn’t a bit strange that she hadn’t taught him to connect with his ‘spirit guide’ before then? Even more bizarre that she only taught him to do so after he had created a psychic mediumship page.

A few weeks later, this post appeared on both their pages:

Source: Facebook/Google Images

I have to say these are some of the most unconvincing examples of validations that I have ever seen. In the first case, I could name you half a dozen people who keep their feelings hidden. In fact, this is often said to be a typically British trait – i.e. keeping a stiff upper lip and not showing your emotions.

The second comment, on the other hand, really makes me sad. Clearly, this is someone who has suffered bereavement and is clutching at anything – no matter how vague – to give her hope of an afterlife.

Let’s be honest, though. Anyone could link the letter ‘B’ to a multitude of things in their lives. For example, just off the top of my head, I baked some bread for breakfast this morning.  I also got a text from my brother. One of best friends had a baby boy this year, and another close friend of mine had a birthday last month. I bought him a photo autographed by Bobby Charlton. I also have an Uncle Bruce and my grandmother’s sister was called Betty. And in my immediate circle of friends, I know people with the surnames Brown, Burton, Bennett, and Bright.

Furthermore, for all the positive responses that Ms Davies has for her son, we have received plenty of negative feedback in return.

For example, here are two typical complaints from former fans:

However, they were among the lucky ones, who decided not to pay for James Higgins’s psychic services. One customer, unfortunately, made the mistake of buying a reading from him and waited for three days – before she was sent this:  

Source: Facebook

(NB: At the time, James Higgins described himself as a ‘spirit medium’. He has now changed the name of his page to ‘James Higgins Psychic Medium’)

Just from looking at this reading, we can see that it’s simply a load of rambling waffle. James can’t seem to make up his mind as to whether the customer has just had a baby or is about to have one. He also talks about the customer getting the opportunity to work online – but then strangely contradicts himself at the end by saying that he “can’t see anything flagging up in her career”.

He was totally wrong, in any case. The customer actually completed her family many years ago. All her children are now adults, so she isn’t about to have another baby. Neither is anyone close to her, and she has no plans to work online.  She couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to produce something so short and inaccurate. She initiated a dispute to get her money back – but has yet to receive a refund.

These are not the only complaints that there have been about him. Another customer recently got in touch with us, alleging that James appears to be buying items online and then selling them at marked-up prices on his Facebook page. For instance, a few months ago, he offered this dress for £29.99 with a ‘free’ spirit reading.

Source: Facebook/Google Images

Note however, that you can buy EXACTLY the same dress here on eBay for £16.99 (plus £9.99 postage).

Now, in the interests of fairness, we should not confine our analysis of James’s psychic ability to his written readings or the items he sells. On occasion, he has conducted mediumship demonstrations for his customers.

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be particularly impressive either.

A few months ago, he took part in a bizarre ghost hunt at a pub in Macclesfield. Apparently, this pub was supposed to be haunted by 22 ghosts, including a particularly evil spirit who has regularly assaulted women.

The video of the hunt went viral – and was picked up the Daily Mirror, which published an edited version on their website, complete with spooky background music. Yet *spoiler alert* absolutely NOTHING happens! The pub landlord, for some reason, goes into a particularly foul-mouthed rant at the ghost, goading it to attack him.  But James Higgins, for the most part, just stands there like a lemon, sporadically saying vague things like, “I sense a male presence.”

But let’s give James another chance. He sometimes holds live ‘question-and-answer’ sessions on Facebook. Here is a sample, which you can watch here:

You can, of course, judge for yourselves as to whether this video shows any proof of psychic ability. But for the purposes of accuracy, here is a transcript – with:

James Higgins’s reading in normal text,

commentary by me added in red,

and parts that I wish to draw attention to in bold.

---------

James: Sarah Lewis, you’re just commenting there. That is, you know, it’s really nice that I’m seeing messages like this. “What will my children be when they grow up?”

A fairly straightforward question about the future. But can he give her a straightforward answer?

Okay, erm, for now, I feel as though your children are at quite a young age.

She’s just asked what her kids will be “when they grow up”, so it’s pretty obvious that they aren’t very old.

There is so many factors that can influence this. I don’t feel in any way whatsoever that a child’s viewpoint on what they want to be now is what they’re going to be in the future. I wanted to be a barrister and that’s a very different job from what I’m doing right now. Erm, there are certain things that can influence this throughout their whole life. Lots of different roads that they could be taking at certain points and each option has a different outcome. So, it’s very difficult for me to be able to tell you that at the moment.

Eh – what?? This is common sense. Everyone already knows that there are different factors that can influence a person’s career path. But aren’t you supposed to be psychic? So shouldn’t you be able to say exactly which road the woman’s children will take?

But it’s very good that I’m seeing that you’re concerned about this. You’re very driven for your children and in the long run, that’s going to benefit them further down the line.

Well, if she wasn’t driven for her children, she wouldn’t have asked that question.

What I think is so important here to say – and this goes for anyone that’s got children. I’ve not got children at the moment, I’ve not got children. But I feel as though I’m very wise with knowledge of what I might pass on to my children. And a lot of what they teach you in school…it’s not the real world. It’s not the real world at all. The things that I’d be telling my children aren’t necessarily the things that they’d be taught in the educational system.

So your school didn’t prepare you for the real world? Very interesting, I’m sure. But what does that have to do with what the woman’s children will be when they grow up?

So, I think it’s important that you – at every available opportunity – give them the lessons that you have learned to develop over the years and things that you wish you knew when you were their age. And a lot of the time, you know, there’s things that you wish you would have known back then that you’ve only just found out recently. There’s things that you might not even know yet, that you’re yet to find out that would have benefited you when you were a child. And looking back, would you have done anything different? A lot of you might have. A lot of you might have done things differently and you know, that’s the whole point of life’s lessons. It’s us learning and developing on the things that we do and then passing that down to our children. And it’s important that we do that for the sake….for the sake of the children’s life, career, finances. You know, we want the best for our children at the end of the day, don’t we?

Oh, good grief! This sounds like the kind of guff you can hear on American talk shows about the best way to raise your children. I’m sure if the woman wanted parenting advice, she would have consulted Supernanny instead of a psychic.

And Sarah, no doubt in any way whatsoever that you are capable of relaying everything that they need to know. I feel as though you’re a very good mum to your children and I do feel as though you’ll get there and give them the support that they need throughout their life. Hope that makes sense to you.

No, I’m afraid it doesn’t. It’s just generalised blather.

But erm…it’s an exciting…exciting time, very exciting time, and watching a child grow up, you know, it must be amazing to, you know, hear at different stages…their aspirations from such a young age. A lot of children want to be a fireman when they grow up or you’ll hear the most randomest things…..I’ve heard children say they want to be a binman when they grow up and when they get older, you know, everything changes. Nothing stays the same. Nothing does stay the same, but it’s just something to bear in mind for the future.

This just basically repeats what he stated earlier about how children’s ambitions often don’t pan out. Sorry, but I can’t see anything remotely psychic about this fairly obvious fact. No answer whatsoever to the woman’s question – despite waffling on for almost five minutes.

---------------

Nonetheless, Jon Donnis (who runs this site) was prepared to give James Higgins one final try. A few weeks ago, James asked people to see if he was drawn to them by messaging him on Facebook. So Jon took him up on his offer – and received quite a surprising response:

Source: Facebook

However, not long afterwards….perhaps after consulting the spirit of Google Search…. James Higgins changed his mind, and sadly decided that Jon wasn’t so ‘lovely’ after all:

Source: Facebook

Regrettably, Jon then received a Facebook block before he was able to reply. But for my part, I simply say this: 
1. Read both previous articles about James’s mother,

2. Consider the evidence that we have provided here on what ‘help and guidance’ James Higgins actually gives to people in need, and

3. then, decide for yourselves who are the ‘evil ones’.

By Stefanie Schmidt

This article is the opinion of Stefanie Schmidt, any images used are freely available in the public domain either on google images or facebook, or otherwise specified and are used for the express purpose of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.

A Warning about Deborah Davies Psychic Medium aka Deborah Jane Higgins (McDonald/Davies)

UPDATE: 14/08/2017
Just a small update, since we published this article Deborah Jane Higgins changed her social media name in an effort to throw people off and so that this article would not be linked to her in google searches.

This article was originally published in September 2014, and the information contained will refer to her under the name she was using then.

I republish this article due to the fact she has been getting some media attention and that people need to be aware of the truth about her and her claims, as well as her history.

Admin

---

The following article was sent to me, the author wishes to remain anonymous due to the aggressive nature of the psychic being talked about, as such you can direct all your abuse to me on Twitter @JonDonnis Please enjoy my little disclaimer below, as we all know how much these psychics like to use Disclaimers!


DISCLAIMER:
The following article is the opinion of the author and may not correspond with the opinions of BadPsychics.com

This article is for Entertainment purposes only, and/or for scientific experimentation

--

Introduction

I have pondered long and hard about whether I should write this article, and come to the conclusion that it is in the public interest that I do so. There are two reasons for this.

Firstly because I think there is a chance that vulnerable and grieving people might be ripped off.

And secondly because of something which happened last year that I found extremely disturbing (this is detailed at the end of this article - under the section entitled Madeleine McCann Claims).

I therefore ask all readers to carefully consider the evidence that I provide here, do more research as they see fit, and then make up their own minds about this person.

Background of Ms Higgins

Sometime last year, I happened to come across a Facebook page called “Deborah Higgins Become a Fan!!” It is run by a self-proclaimed psychic/medium by the name of Deborah Jane Higgins, who is also known as Deborah Jane McDonald (her maiden name) or Deborah Jane Davies (as a result of her second marriage). Although I hadn’t heard of her before, I was astounded to see what a huge following she has. It has since swelled to over 140,000 Facebook “likes”. That's almost double that of Sally Morgan and around four times as many as Derek Acorah. 

As far as I can ascertain, Ms Higgins has managed to gather a huge number of fans even though she has not appeared regularly on TV, nor does she perform shows. According to my research, she simply ran a beauty salon in Stockport - which may have since changed hands or been dissolved since the official website given on the Facebook page no longer seems to work. If it has been dissolved, then it wouldn't be the first of Ms Higgins' businesses to bite the dust.

Funnily enough, I also came across this article which publicised her (failed) slimming business. No mention at all of her having psychic powers, even though Ms Higgins claims in one of her YouTube videos to have heard voices since she was young.

One also wonders, if she was really psychic, why she didn't see the failure of her previous business(es) coming.

Analysis of Ms Higgins' Psychic Ability and Claims

But I digress. Returning to the subject of her Facebook page, I personally wasn't too impressed or convinced by some of her readings. Take a look at the following examples below:

Note how she simply asked for someone called Emma Louise whose grandfather was called Albert.

1. Isn't it funny how the spirits are never able to say what their surnames are?

2. Isn't it even more strange that the spirit actually got his relationship to his descendant wrong (great grandfather instead of grandfather)?

3. What's particularly interesting, though, if you look on the right, is just how many people called Emma Louise this statement could have applied to! Theoretically, all she had to do was pick one of them!

Or how about this reading:

Again this is very vague, and the spirit isn’t even able to say for definite who he is – leaving the customer to supply the relationship. The name “Rose” is very common, and the letter “E” could be just about anything. This smacks strongly of cold reading, a technique which stage magicians or mentalists often use to convince the audience that they know more about them than they really do.

And then, we have this very strange reading:

So let’s get this right. With her previous messages, Ms Higgins wasn’t even able to convey the exact full names of the people who had passed, yet here she has a spirit message from a dead dog?! I wonder what Marley had to say; “Woof! Woof! Woof!”?

These were not the only assertions by Ms Higgins that some have found questionable. On her official website Ghost Antics (which has since been redesigned, but the info is still available here via The Wayback Machine), she made the rather grandiose claim that her mother was also a psychic/medium who had been responsible for locating one of the bodies of the Moors Murder victims, as well as working on the Ripper case.

This was later challenged by others - and simply met with personal attacks:

We will return to the subject of Madeleine McCann later in this article. But I personally also find it highly unlikely that Ms Higgins' mother really managed to locate one of the Moors Murder victims’ bodies. I apologise in advance for linking to this video - as it is extremely graphic and distressing - but it also backs up what the challenger to Ms Higgins' claim said.

As for the Ripper, again I don't personally see how a psychic/medium could possibly have helped in cracking that case. According to this link, it actually took over five years to apprehend Peter Sutcliffe. He had been interviewed by the police on at least one occasion – before they finally caught him red-handed with a prostitute in a car which had been fitted with false number plates. The investigation had been hampered in part because of a number of hoax messages sent to the police by Wearside Jack.

Allegations about Ms Higgins ripping customers off

Nevertheless, whether or not you choose to believe that Ms Higgins is psychic, there are other things that she has been accused of. I came in contact with a group of former admin from Ms Higgins’ page (see their Facebook group here) who claimed that there were several clients who paid Ms Higgins for readings that they never got. Or found that the readings they did get from Ms Higgins were duplicates. Apparently, when the clients tried to make enquiries via Facebook, they were blocked. According to the ex-admin, Ms Higgins left them to deal with the unhappy customers - while she went off on holiday. The ex-admin then allegedly decided that enough was enough and "outed" her on the Facebook page.

This version of events was also detailed on a now-defunct website, a copy of which can still be seen here, c/o the Wayback Machine.

Now, in the interests of fairness, I have to say that Ms Higgins and her supporters claim that her Facebook page had been hacked. However, since the people who allegedly "outed" her were actually ex-admin that she herself had appointed, I'm inclined to think that "hacked" is inaccurate. Again, please note that despite claiming to be psychic, Ms Higgins apparently didn't foresee the problems with her admin team. There were also accusations from her side that this was part of a huge hate campaign because ex-admin were jealous and wanted to make money from doing psychic readings themselves. I honestly do not know if the ex-admin had ulterior motives, but let me assure the readers that if this does eventually prove to be the case, then I shall add this info to this article in due course.

Nonetheless, there were one or two points on which Ms Higgins and/or her supporters have (perhaps unwittingly) agreed with the ex-admin's story.

Firstly, on the subject of duplicate readings, I came across a number of people claiming that Ms Higgins had given them readings which mentioned Peter André. I'm not sure in what context, but take a look at this (written by two different people):

And then Ms Higgins gave this interesting response:

So, it seems to me that Ms Higgins has effectively admitted giving duplicate readings and blamed this on the other people picking the same cards. I will leave the readers to decide for themselves how likely it is that two people picked the same cards. I will only say that there are generally 78 tarot cards in total in each average pack. Thus, the odds of two people picking the same cards are less than the chances of a person matching the lottery numbers drawn each week. And the chances of winning the lottery are, incidentally......................................................1 in 14,000 000.

Then I noticed this:

So here Ms Higgins' supporters are admitting that she was behind with her readings - yet she still went on holiday! Not something a professional would do - but again, make what you will of that.

Madeleine McCann Claims

And finally, we come to why I decided to write this blog entry. In August 2013, I was made aware of a series of disturbing posts on Ms Higgins' page. She has since deleted them - but fortunately, I was able to obtain screenshots - along with a statement on psychics from the official spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann (taken from Jon Ronson's excellent article here):

I think most of us must be aware of the tragic case of Madeleine McCann who has been missing since 2007. One thing I detest about self-proclaimed psychics is when they interject themselves into missing person cases and divert the investigation with misinformation - costing precious time and resources (see Sylvia Browne’s involvement with the Shawn Hornbeck case as one example of this). Note too that according to the McCann’s spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, the investigators look into anything demonstrably checkable - which would mean approx. 100-150 psychic leads in Madeleine's case. All of which, logically, must have been a waste of time because poor Madeleine is still missing. Make of that what you wish. I personally consider it to be evil!

But see here that Ms Higgins claimed she knows everything, that Madeleine is still alive and seems to be blaming the police for not taking her seriously when she tried to contact them two years ago.

It is very odd that Ms Higgins claimed the police were not taking her seriously, given that she had indicated on her own website that she has successfully worked with the police in the past on missing person cases:

But then again, I have found that Ms Higgins isn't always consistent in her claims. PLEASE take a look at this post (on the left) she apparently made about Madeleine McCann on 15 January 2013 and just see if you can spot the differences!!

I really have no words for this. I just leave you to draw your own conclusions

Still, for a brief while at least, Ms Higgins did actually do herself a disservice where her fans were concerned. I'll leave the last word with them - before their comments were removed, that is:

A Look at Psychic Joe Power

The following article was originally published on 25th June 2009

In recent times a 'psychic' by the name of Joe Power has come into the media eye, in fact we have covered the last few years of his professional career in some detail on this site, but how has a psychic such as this manipulated his position in life to that of a 'wannabe celebrity' psychic. Well for that we must go back to the beginning, well not the beginning, but lets say 2006 instead.

In April of 2006, Joe Power caused controversy when he made it public that he was going to contact the spirit of John Lennon, as you can imagine this caused a lot of discussion, even Yoko Ono had her representatives release a statement calling the stunt “Exploitative”, but of course this is exactly what Joe Power wanted, media attention. A US TV station had apparently found someone who would be willing to partake in this stunt and for what? A pay-per view TV special. Oh how very spiritual, and only $9.95, that's a good $5 cheaper than the Princess Diana séance from a few years earlier.

So what did John Lennon have to say for himself, well the ground breaking message from the dead Lennon was “peace....the message is peace”, now if that isn't worth $9.95 then I don't know what is.

Despite appearing on this American special, things were still not going great for Joe, despite his own claims, he was having to cancel shows on a regular basis due to poor ticket sales, when you cant sell out small hotel function rooms then you know that a new stunt is in order, especially since the Lennon séance did nothing for his career.

One of the claims Joe has made over the years is one that many psychics use, that being that they have helped the police solve crimes, you hear this all the time, but with Joe Power we decided to dig deeper. He claimed to have helped Southport Police in the Lyndsey Quy murder case, yet when we asked Detective Superintendent Geoff Sloan, he made the following statement: “I wish to state, categorically, that as Senior Investigating Officer on the Lyndsey Quy murder, I made a policy decision not to use psychics on the investigation. Joe Power has allegedly made claims that he assisted the enquiry but this is not the case.”

So like most if not all psychics Joe Power was simply making claims that were not true, but this would not stop him from using such claims in the future, claims we would show were untrue time after time after time.

Joe also claimed “through one of his astonishing spirit links” to have known the killer of model Sally Anne Bowman and that he informed the police that the killer was a “Stephen” or “Stephan White”, aged between 24 and 26 and was a delivery driver. Yet following DNA evidence the police arrested and charged 36 year old chef Mark Dixie who is now serving a life sentence in prison. So yet again Joe is wrong. Yet he keeps telling people how he helps the police.

So despite cancelling 44% of his publicised shows in 2005, 2006 and 2007, Joe Power was still hungry for 'power' and fame. In 2008 he made an astounding public statement when he said “‘TV mediums are ripping people off. The place is saturated with fake mediums getting away with playing on people’s emotions ....” Yes the same man who did a tacky pay-per view TV special in America contacting John Lennon, despite the objections of the Lennon estate and Yoko Ono.

Throughout 2008 things just got worse for Joe, of 65 advertised shows at least 51 were cancelled due to poor sales.

But in 2009 Joe saw an opportunity, an opportunity to get himself on the front page of every newspaper in the country, and he took it. This was at the time when the Madeleine McCann story had become worldwide news, another child by the name of Shannon Matthews had gone missing in similar circumstances, knowing full well that the interest of this story would be front page news Joe visited the Shannons mother Karen Matthews and her partner Craig Meehan, he gave them a reading which would even be quoted in the Sunday People newspaper. Suddenly he found himself in the papers, In a photograph standing next to Karen Matthews, this was exactly what Joe wanted, media attention.

Unfortunately despite claiming to be clairvoyant, clairaudient, and clairessient, and despite spending a lot of time with the family of Shannon Matthews, Joe seemed to have missed one tiny detail, that being that Karen Matthews had actually been behind the fake kidnap of her 9 year old daughter. Karen Matthews is now serving time in prison, and has shown no remorse for her crimes. This is the woman who Joe Power happily had his photo taken with, and who he gave readings too.

As you would expect this was not the kind of thing that Joe had hoped that would happen, he now found himself in the position of failed psychic once again.

Joe Power claims he has helped the police solve crimes, we know this is not true, in fact from the very mouths of the police, he has not helped them at all. The one case where he truly put himself on the line, he failed miserably.

So now we find ourselves bang up to date, many tacky stunts, failed tours, cancelled shows, yet still Joe Power manages to find himself a book publisher, although when a member of Bad Psychics went along to one of his signings, all that could be found was a lonely figure of Joe sat at a table on his own, no line of people, no crowds scrambling for his photo, nothing, maybe this is all that is left for this man, or maybe he has already planned his next stunt, only time will tell.

But Joe would have one last dig at those who dare to doubt him.

I will quote from my good friend, Bad Psychics member and Merseyside skeptic Marsh who recently met Joe Power, and handed him an application form for the JREF Million Dollar challenge, Joe would reply:

“The thing about you sceptics, is that you sit there, festering in front of your computers at 3am, thinking up ways to get at people. What if I were to sit in front of your house and tell people you’re a paedophile?”

“because you’re there festering, at 3am, plotting to get at me, in the same way that paedophiles fester and plot to interfere with children – you both have to be sick in the head to do what you do.”

”I think most sceptics probably are paedophiles. I mean you’re sat around at 3am, plotting, aren’t you? Do you deny that?”

And people wonder why Joe is disliked by so many people, why he has to cancel show after show, and why no one turns up to his book signings.

Joe Powers career should be a warning to any wannabe celebrity psychic out there. Don'tt make claims you cant back up, because the one annoying thing about skeptics is that we simplydon'tt take things on faith, we investigate, we search, and we find out the truth.

By Jon Donnis – BadPsychics.co.uk

If you have had any recent interactions with Joe Power please do get in touch, leave a comment, or send me a message.