Curse Removal Scams: How "You Are Cursed" Becomes a Bill
By DailyDestiny Editorial Team
The short answer
When someone tells you that you are cursed and asks for money to remove it, you are looking at the opening of the most common psychic fraud on record. In October 2025, prosecutors in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, charged a self-described psychic and her partner with taking about $614,000 from two clients they allegedly told were cursed. In June 2026, a federal grand jury in Seattle indicted a Texas couple, alleging that a woman posing online as the psychic "Jolene Travis" persuaded clients their money was cursed and took at least $2.5 million. In San Francisco and Sydney, police have warned of street "blessing" crews using the same story. The settings change. The script does not.
A reader looks at you kindly and says something dark is attached to you, your love life or your money. Then comes the offer to remove it. This is what the court records and police reports show about curse removal scams: five cases from a Times Square shop to a social media psychic and street "blessing" crews, the script they all follow, where the money goes, and the one rule that stops it.
On this page
Is curse removal a scam?
Maybe it started with a $10 reading, or a message from a kind-looking account after a breakup. You were told the reason everything keeps going wrong is not you. Something is attached to you, maybe from a jealous ex or from generations back. And there is a way out.
That moment feels like relief. Someone has finally explained the pain. This page is about what happens next, so that you can recognise it while it is still a feeling and not yet a bill.
We have already told one of these stories in depth in Rose Marks: The Psychic Who Took $17.8 Million From Clients, the Florida case that went to a federal jury. This page looks across many cases instead, to show you the pattern they share.
Our sources are the charges and statements of prosecutors and police (the Montgomery County District Attorney, the US Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington, the San Francisco Police Department, New South Wales Police), and reporting by the Associated Press, The Philadelphia Inquirer, ABA Journal, CNN, ABC News (Australia), KOMO and FOX 4. Charges are allegations, and anyone charged is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Where a person has pleaded guilty or been convicted, we say so. We do not name victims.
Five cases, one script: what the record shows
New York, 2013 to 2016. A man walked into a Times Square psychic shop hoping to be reunited with a woman he loved. The psychic, Priscilla Kelly Delmaro, told him they were "twin flames" kept apart by negativity, and promised to bring them together with special crystals, "a time machine and an 80-mile bridge made of gold." When he learned the woman had died, she said she could reincarnate her spirit in another body. Delmaro admitted taking $557,411 in cash and gifts, pleaded guilty to grand larceny and was sentenced on 26 January 2016 to four years of probation, after eight months in jail (ABA Journal, 27 January 2016, citing The New York Times).
Maryland and Florida, 2009 to 2018. Gina Marie Marks, working under the name Natalie Miller, pleaded guilty in February 2018 to felony theft for taking $340,000 from five people, after police learned of her when a woman paying for love spells grew suspicious near $80,000. She had pleaded no contest and guilty to similar charges in Florida in 2009 and 2010 (Associated Press, 16 February 2018). The Philadelphia Inquirer reported she was sentenced to six years in Maryland.
Pennsylvania, 2022 to 2026. The same Gina Marie Marks, 52, and Steve Nicklas, 40, were charged in October 2025 over "Jenkintown Psychic Visions" on Old York Road. Prosecutors say they convinced one client "she was plagued by a powerful curse preventing her from finding love and happiness", collected $595,959 in cash, jewellery, clothing, concert tickets and gift cards over 11 months to "cleanse" it, and never returned any of it. A second client allegedly lost at least $18,000 and was pressed for increasingly personal photos and a Chanel purse (Montgomery County District Attorney, via Glenside Local, 8 October 2025).
Seattle and Texas, 2021 to 2026. A federal indictment unsealed in June 2026 charges Bridgette Doreen Evans, 47, and Vinnie John Uwanawich, 44, of Frisco, Texas, with conspiracy, wire fraud and mail fraud. Prosecutors allege Evans posed on social media as the psychic "Jolene Travis", told a Washington woman a curse was tied to her finances, and persuaded her to liquidate accounts, sell her home and send more than $2.1 million in gold coins to Florida for cleansing (KOMO, 11 June 2026; FOX 4, 16 June 2026).
San Francisco and Sydney, 2024 to 2025. San Francisco police listed seven "blessing scam" cases between 23 November 2024 and 2 January 2025, with victims aged 69 to 79 losing about $374,000 in total (SFPD, 14 January 2025). In Sydney, a police strike force formed in April 2025 was investigating about 80 reports totalling A$3 million when it made its first arrests in July (CNN, 4 July 2025).
Four settings: a tourist-street shopfront, a suburban psychic studio, a social media account, a city sidewalk. Different decades, different countries, different languages. Now read them again and look for the same five moves. They are all there.
What is the curse removal script, step by step?
1. A small, safe first step. A walk-in reading, a phone reading, a reply to a social media post. In Pennsylvania, prosecutors say the first victim "initially contacted 'Jenkintown Psychic Visions' … for a psychic phone reading" (Glenside Local, 8 October 2025). In Seattle, the victim answered posts "advertising psychic services and relationship advice" (KOMO, 11 June 2026).
2. A diagnosis you did not ask for. A curse, black magic, negative energy, a "karmic debt". It is always attached to the thing you came in worried about. In Pennsylvania it was "a curse preventing her from finding love". In Seattle, prosecutors say Evans told the victim the curse was tied to her finances, her home and even her divorce settlement. Street crews in Sydney tell older women "a member of their family is cursed or in danger" (CNN, 2025).
3. Only they can lift it. Prosecutors in the Seattle case say victims were told "only Evans could remove them" (KOMO, 2026).
4. Your money is the cure. The removal needs your cash, gold or valuables to be cleansed, blessed or held for a ritual, with a promise that it will come back. "Evans allegedly promised the victims that the money would be returned after it was purified" (FOX 4, 2026). In Pennsylvania, clients were told "personal belongings were needed to complete the ritual and would be returned later" (DA, 2025).
5. Fear keeps you paying. If you stop, the curse returns or something worse happens. The second Pennsylvania victim says she was threatened with "reputational damage and personal repercussions" (DA, 2025). Sydney's blessing crews tell victims that opening the bag early will bring "bad fortune" (CNN, 2025).
Step five is the oldest of all. It ran through the mass-mailed letters described in Maria Duval: The Psychic Letters That Took $175 Million, where one woman told Scotland's Daily Record in 1997 that when she wrote back to say she had no money, "the letters got even more frightening" (quoted by CNN, 24 February 2016).
Notice how each step makes the next one feel reasonable. A reading is normal. Hearing that your pain has a cause is comforting. A specialist for a special problem makes sense. And once you believe your money itself is the problem, handing it over can feel like protection.
That is why intelligent, careful people pay. Prosecutors in every one of these cases describe victims who came in at a hard moment: divorce, grief, loneliness, depression, a relationship ending. The script works on hurt, and no amount of intelligence protects you from that.
Why do some psychics give a little money back?
To keep you trusting. Prosecutors in the Seattle case allege that Evans and others "occasionally sent small payments back to victims to maintain their trust and keep the scheme going", and that those payments came to less than 6 percent of the money collected (KOMO, 11 June 2026). A small refund feels like proof the promise is real. It is often the cheapest part of the whole operation.
Where does the money go?
The record shows the money moving in ways that are hard to reverse.
Gold coins. In the Seattle case, prosecutors allege the victim was told to "wire money to purchase gold coins, and send those coins to Florida for spiritual cleansing ceremonies", and that Uwanawich helped sell the gold. The proceeds of her house sale and a lump-sum divorce settlement allegedly went the same way (KOMO, 2026).
Payment apps. The same victim allegedly sent more than $83,000 through Zelle, Cash App and Apple Cash. In Pennsylvania, detectives traced money from both victims through Cash App, Zelle and a credit union into accounts belonging to the two defendants (DA, 2025).
Loans in your name. A third victim in the Seattle case was allegedly persuaded to take out loans and open credit cards, including to finance a $125,000 Chevrolet Corvette delivered to Evans in Florida, to clear "karmic debts" (KOMO; FOX 4, 2026).
Luxury goods. Pennsylvania prosecutors say clients were asked for jewellery, clothing, concert tickets, gift cards and a Chanel purse.
A swapped bag. In blessing scams, the victim's cash and jewellery go into a bag for blessing and are switched for a bag of paper or empty boxes. The Los Angeles County District Attorney described one case in which a senior put more than $70,000 in cash and jewellery in a bag and later found "pieces of newspaper" (LA County DA fraud alert, 25 August 2017).
Look at that list again. Gold, app transfers, loans, resaleable goods, a bag swapped on the street. Each one moves value fast and leaves you with little to claw back. A sincere spiritual practice has no use for any of it. When a ritual specifies the form your money must take, the form was chosen for the person receiving it.
Who runs curse removal scams?
The public record points to three kinds of operator. We name only people already named by prosecutors or in court.
Repeat individuals. Gina Marie Marks pleaded guilty or no contest in Florida in 2009 and 2010, pleaded guilty in Maryland in 2018, and was charged again in Pennsylvania in 2025 (AP, 2018; Philadelphia Inquirer, 8 October 2025). The Seattle indictment alleges that Evans used the "Jolene Travis" name and others, including "Joy John" and "Joy Paige", to hide prior psychic fraud convictions in Texas and Florida, and FOX 4 reported that she pleaded guilty in a separate psychic fraud case in 2023.
Small family or partner teams. In both the Pennsylvania and Seattle cases, prosecutors describe a partner handling the money side. The Seattle indictment alleges that when Evans was jailed in Florida, others kept writing to victims under the same alias.
Travelling crews. New South Wales Police believe about 50 people are involved in the Sydney blessing scams, with 25 identified by name and 11 arrest warrants issued by July 2025 (CNN, 4 July 2025). Detective Superintendent Guy Magee said: "It's like a role play. There's nothing by chance in what they do, they all have deliberate roles." San Francisco police said offenders "often" come to the city around the holidays and Lunar New Year (SFPD, 14 January 2025).
Where the cases stand. The Pennsylvania case was still before the courts at the last public report we found: on 20 April 2026, a judge dismissed four charges against Nicklas, including racketeering, and held him for trial on theft and related charges, while Marks waived her preliminary hearing and faces all charges (Glenside Local, citing The Philadelphia Inquirer). For the Seattle case, Evans and Uwanawich made their first court appearance in the Eastern District of Texas in June 2026, and we found no public report of a plea or trial as of 29 October 2026. In Sydney, a man and a woman each faced three charges, including participating in a criminal group (ABC News Australia, 9 July 2025). Everyone charged is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
What do the accused say?
Some have answered publicly, and their words are part of the record.
"We do have power." When Gina Marie Marks pleaded guilty in Maryland in 2018, the AP reported that she said she would return all the payments she received "but maintained her services are real". Glenside Local, citing NBC Washington, quoted her that year: "People are racist from gypsies. They're racist on my culture. We do have power. We're not allowed to talk about it."
"I'm very sorry for what happened." Priscilla Kelly Delmaro said this to the judge at her sentencing in January 2016, The New York Times reported (via ABA Journal).
No public response yet. We found no public statement from Evans, Uwanawich or Nicklas about the current charges. The Philadelphia Inquirer noted in October 2025 that there was no indication Marks had hired a lawyer.
Marks's point about prejudice deserves a serious answer, because it is a real one. Romani people have faced centuries of discrimination, and "gypsy curse" stereotypes are part of it. Most people who read cards or palms, from any background, never take a client's savings. That is exactly why this page focuses on conduct, not culture. The only test that matters is what someone asks you to hand over.
How do you stop a curse removal scam?
You do not have to argue about whether curses exist. You only need one rule and a few checks.
The one rule: no real practice needs your money to lift a curse. Not your cash, not your gold, not your jewellery, not a loan. If the removal only works when your valuables leave your hands, walk away.
Then check for these signs:
1. A curse you did not know about, announced in the first reading.
2. A cause tied to your exact worry, whether love, money or a sick relative.
3. "Only I can remove it."
4. A promise that your money will come back after cleansing, blessing or purifying.
5. Requests for personal photos or details beyond what a reading needs. Pennsylvania prosecutors say requests for "increasingly personal" images were part of the pressure.
6. Secrecy, or an instruction not to open a bag, tell family or ask questions.
7. Threats if you stop, of bad luck, illness, exposure or the curse returning.
San Francisco police give advice that works anywhere: do not follow strangers, do not let them touch you, "do not withdraw money at banks with strangers", "do not bring strangers home", and "before withdrawing large sums of money/valuables, tell your family" (SFPD, 14 January 2025). New South Wales Police add: never put money or jewellery in a bag "for any blessing ritual" (CNN, 2025).
If you have an older parent or grandparent, especially one who speaks a language other than English, have this conversation now, gently and without shame. Police in Sydney say these crimes are "profoundly underreported" because victims feel embarrassed, and San Francisco's District Attorney says victims "often feel deep shame".
What should I do if I have already paid?
Stop paying first, even if you are frightened of what will happen. Then write down everything you remember, keep every message and receipt, and contact your bank or payment app about a fraud claim. Report it to your local police. In the US, report to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov and, for anything that happened online, to the FBI at ic3.gov, which the FBI named for victims in the Seattle case. If you are 60 or older, or helping someone who is, the National Elder Fraud Hotline is 1-833-FRAUD-11 (1-833-372-8311).
How do I tell someone they are being scammed by a psychic?
Start from their pain, not their mistake. They went looking for help at a hard time, and the person they found seemed to care. Ask questions instead of making accusations: what did the reader say would happen to the money, and when? Read this page together, or one of the case summaries above. People leave these situations when they feel safe enough to admit they were fooled, so make it safe.
What can you do if you feel cursed or stuck?
The feeling that something heavy is following you is real, and you can tend to it without paying a stranger.
Many traditions offer protection and cleansing you can do yourself. Our guide Spiritual Cleansing Baths: 3 Recipes, Real Traditions and Safety explains three you can make at home for the cost of some salt and herbs. The Evil Eye: Meaning, Signs, Bracelet Colours and How to Remove It covers one of the oldest beliefs about envy and harm, and the simple home remedies families have used for centuries. If a person in your life leaves you drained, Energy Vampires: How to Spot the Pattern and Set the Boundary is about the most practical protection there is. And if the heaviness stays, seeing a doctor or counsellor is a sign of strength, and it fits alongside any faith.
Astrology can help you reflect on a hard stretch, if it is honest about what it is. Your birth chart is free maths, and you can see yours on our free birth chart page. We sell one thing: Your Year Ahead, a reading computed by software from your birthday and the real sky over your next 12 months. It cannot lift a curse and does not claim to. It shows one price before you pay, never asks for more, and you can ask for a full refund within 30 days. Its own page says it is a tool for reflection, not a prediction.
Every victim on this page went looking for the same thing: someone to tell them the pain had an end. That wish is not foolish. It is the most human thing there is. You deserve to have it met by people who leave your savings exactly where they are.
Questions people ask
A psychic said I was cursed. What should I do?
Do not pay for removal, and do not hand over money, gold, jewellery or personal photos to be cleansed or blessed. In every case on this page, the curse was the opening move of a fraud as police and prosecutors described it. Talk to someone you trust who has nothing to sell you, and if you feel unsafe or have already paid, report it to your local police. In the US you can also report to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and to the FBI at ic3.gov if it happened online.
Is curse removal a scam?
Charging money to remove a curse you did not know you had is the core of a long line of fraud cases. Prosecutors in Pennsylvania charged two people in October 2025 with taking about $614,000 from two clients through a curse-removal scheme. A federal grand jury in Seattle indicted a Texas couple in June 2026 over at least $2.5 million taken from three victims told their money was cursed. Not every person who talks about curses is a criminal, but a paid removal is the step to refuse.
Can a psychic really remove a curse?
Belief in curses and protective rituals is old and widespread, and many traditions have ways to cleanse or bless that you can do yourself or with your own community at little or no cost. None of them requires you to give a stranger thousands of dollars, your savings in gold, or a bag of your jewellery. When the removal depends on your money changing hands, the money is the point.
How do curse removal scams work?
The cases follow the same steps: a cheap or free first reading, a diagnosis of a curse or negative energy on your love life, family or money, a claim that only this reader can remove it, a request to hand over money or valuables to be "cleansed" with a promise they will come back, and pressure or threats if you stop. Some send small amounts back to keep you trusting. In the Seattle case, prosecutors say returned payments were less than 6 percent of what was taken.
What is a blessing scam?
It is a street version of the curse script that police in the US, Australia and New Zealand have warned about for years. Strangers approach an older person, often an older Chinese woman, and say a relative is cursed or in danger. A "healer" offers to bless her cash and jewellery in a bag, tells her not to open it for days or weeks, and swaps it for a bag of worthless items. San Francisco police listed seven such cases from November 2024 to January 2025 totalling about $374,000.
How do I get my money back from a psychic?
Act quickly. If you paid by card, ask your bank about a chargeback. If you paid by wire, Zelle, Cash App or crypto, call your bank or the app at once and ask about a fraud claim, then file a police report, since banks and courts usually need one. In criminal cases courts can order restitution: Priscilla Kelly Delmaro, a New York psychic, agreed in 2016 to a confession of judgment so her victim could collect from her future assets. Be wary of anyone who offers to recover your money for a fee.
Is fortune telling illegal?
It depends where you are. In most of the US, paid readings are legal, and fraud is what gets prosecuted. Some states also have specific fortune-telling laws: the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, charges filed in October 2025 included the offence of "Fortune Telling" alongside theft and racketeering charges. Taking money on a promise to cleanse it and return it, and then keeping it, is treated as theft or fraud almost everywhere.
Why do psychics ask for gold or jewellery?
Because it carries value that can be sold quietly and moves outside the banking system. In the Seattle indictment, prosecutors say a victim was told to buy gold coins and send them to Florida for cleansing ceremonies. Pennsylvania prosecutors said clients were asked for jewellery, clothing, concert tickets and gift cards. Street blessing crews ask for cash and jewellery in a bag. A request for valuables "to cleanse" is one of the clearest warning signs there is.
Are online psychics on Instagram and TikTok safe?
Some readers online are sincere, and some are not. The Seattle case began, prosecutors say, when a woman answered social media posts offering psychic readings and relationship advice. The reader used the name "Jolene Travis", which the indictment says hid prior psychic fraud convictions. Before paying anyone, search their name with the word "fraud", read the refund terms, and refuse any request to send money for cleansing, curse removal or "karmic debt".
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