Miss
Cleo's San Antonio Connection-Part Two
Express News
Classified Ad Could Help You Become A Professional
Psychic In Just 10 Minutes
RG Griffing, SAL Staff
Copyright 2002 By
SanAntonioLightning.Com
Who
Is Miss Cleo?
She
is a mysterious woman who shills for a complex of
phony "psychic" services that base out of
Florida.
Nobody
seems to know her real name, but she has been
identified by law agencies across the nation as: Youree Perris, Youree Harris, Rae
Dell Harris, Cleomili Perris Youree, Cleomili Harris,
and Youree Dell Harris.
There may be
other names we haven't nailed down yet.
For instance,
New York Consumer Protection Chairman Adrienne Rhodes
reports that Miss Cleo's real name is Youree Cleomili
Harris of Florida.
He reports
that she got her job as "Miss Cleo" from an
open audition. He also reports that Harris is a
registered member of the Screen Actor's Guild, though
no listing has been found with SAG under any of her
aliases.
She is
believed to have been born in Florida on August 12,
1962. Her social security number was issued in
California in 1978.
Her last known
address was a 3-acre spread at a semi-rural rent
house at 787 SW 126th Avenue, Southwest Ranches,
Broward County, FL 33325.
Her official
biography, published on her website MissCleo.Com claims:
"As a
devoted Shango Shaman in training for well over
twenty years, Miss Cleo’s been helping people
all her life. In a very short period of time,
she’s become a household name simply by the
sheer force of her psychic gifts, which she’s
honed since she was a little girl in the Caribbean.
Born in the Trelawny section of Jamaica, Miss Cleo
says she noticed at very young age that she had
unique talents. “Dead people used to come and
talk to me in my dreams when I was a little
gal,” she says, adding that she felt she had to
hide her amazing abilities while growing up. “My
mother wanted me to be an attorney, but me
wasn’t feeling it all.”
This may be as
fanciful as her lousy Jamaican accent, or her
promises to divine your future, given her well
demonstrated penchant for deception.
* * *
The same day
the Express News ran its latest "Psychic
Needed" ad, the Associated Press reported that A
Pennsylvania Judge had ordered the marketers behind
the television psychic to stop harassing customers
who have asked not to be contacted by the company.
The class
action suit is not the first litigation the Florida
firms that market Cleo have faced. The Attorneys
General of Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, New York,
and Kansas have filed consumer fraud suits against
the company. New York and Missouri have settled for
$220,000 and $70,000 respectively.
Yet, for all
of that, Miss Cleo is not liable for any of the
actions taken in her name. She is seen as merely an
actress who generates the pizzazz that makes the
whole thing work.
The people
responsible for the scam are two Fort Lauderdale men,
Steven Feder and Peter Stolz, who have run an amazing
number of similar companies, and have for years, by
the various names of Access Resources, Psychic
Readers Network, Open Horizons, Bahia Encounters,
Oshun 5 Communications, and at least 15 others.
When one
entity gets "too hot" the business is
shuffled off to another incarnation.
Feder and
Stolz were unavailable to comment on this report.
* * *
As much as the
public will blame Miss Cleo for the frauds committed
in her name, there are others besides herself and her
employers that are to blame.
There are a
number of enablers without whom this game of national
bunko could not be played out.
Those who
accept advertising for this obvious scam nationwide
know full well that they are promoting a fraud. Yet
there are plenty who accept the ad dollars, and are
happy for them, including some local outlets in San
Antonio.
Also to blame
are newspapers, like the Express News, which allow
their classifieds to be used as a tool for recruiting
thieves.
But finally,
those most to blame are the suckers who fall for this
claptrap and expect a cheesy TV personality to
somehow make their lives better. As the men in
Florida know all too well, those gullible folks will
not heed a warning such as this.
*
* *
Part Three:
The
Tricks Of The Trade
