Actually, I didn't work for anyone who calls herself Miss Cleo. (You didn't think that gal in the commercials was actually taking calls, did you?) I worked, essentially, for the same people the actress in the commercial worked for: PRN, the Psychic Readers' Network.

But I didn't really work for PRN, I worked for a 'bookstore', which is one of the smaller companies to which PRN farms out the actual recruiting and management of 'psychics'. I'll refer to the actual company, or 'bookstore', I worked for as 'Team A'.

I'm not going to name that 'bookstore' in this article because I don't want to embarrass or upset the person who acted as my team leader. I have nothing bad to say about her, quite the opposite. The 'bookstore' I worked for proved to be honest, encouraging, and wonderful. It almost would have made for a more interesting piece if they'd been one of the companies which regularly screws it readers by not sending payments and such, but I can't find a bad word for the company I actually contracted with. So 'Team A' will have to do.

Right away I was struck by the emphasis on call average. You see, if you don't have an average call length of 16 minutes, then you don't *get* calls the next day. So keeping each caller on the phone for as long as possible becomes your goal. It wasn't terribly difficult to meet this average, if you had any talking skill at all, so the tactics used and encouraged by PRN were disheartening.

People would call for their 'free readin' and become absolutely outraged that the first 2 free minutes were used up by me gathering their name, address, email address and birthdate, and by my reciting, and making sure they were writing down, a number with which they could call me back if we were cut off, or if their time ran out.

The last minute was spent asking them what kind of reading they wanted, and me trying to shuffle the cards super fast so I could give this person at least a little information before his time was up.

Very often, as soon as I'd get the cards laid out, the person would hang up, his free minutes gone.

I wasn't a great PRN 'player' in the sense that I refused to give the caller any sort of 'preamble' as it was suggested we do. Say it only took me 30 seconds to gather the caller's information (when they refused to give anything but their birthdate, this is about how long it would take).

Readers were then encouraged to give very vague and general statements to KEEP THE CALLER FROM HANGING UP BEFORE THE 3-MINUTE MARK. The actual 'reading' was not supposed to begin until they were on paid time. I hated this practice, and personally thought that if you could start the reading as soon as possible, and you were any good at it, *that* was a better way to keep a caller from hanging up. But if you didn't follow PRN's rules, you didn't work.

Gathering the addresses and emails of each caller was simply good marketing on PRN's behalf. Then the caller could be sent mailings and email offers to keep them coming back. But using the 'free minutes' to gather this info was less than admirable.

Yet no reader who wanted to continue working would skip this necessary step -- if you didn't get valid addresses from at least 75% of all calls, you didn't work.

'Take each call to the full hour' (or rather the 59 minutes allowed by the FCC) was an often repeated phrase. 'Take each call to the beep'. And then, once you hear the beep that signifies there's only about a minute left, you're to say something provocative to make the caller want to CALL YOU RIGHT BACK so you can elaborate on whatever you just said.

This would allow another 59 minutes of talk time with the same person. And a substantially bigger phone/credit card bill for the caller.

One night while I was working the line, I got a call from a very frustrated man who simply wanted me to stop calling him. I explained that I didn't make calls, I only answered them, but I gave him a number where he could complain. He claimed that sometimes several times a night the phone would ring and when answered, only a recorded message would greet them, urging them to call RIGHT NOW. It wouldn't have irritated him so much, but it came at odd times throughout the night, often after his children were in bed.

This is not an uncommon claim. Nor is the claim that people are being billed in the hundreds of dollars for calls they claim lasted only for a few minutes, or even less.

The FTC is taking some long, hard looks at PRN and their tactics. PRN is catching heat from other folks, as well.

According to the author and her lawyer(s), readers were reciting directly from the book 'Tarot Made Easy' by Nancy Garen, who sued, claiming that PRN's readers were quoting passages in her book.

When Miss Garen's lawsuit came down, we were to sign an affidavit to that effect. I had no problem doing so because it was the truth, though I found I needed to change the wording in a few places. (No one at PRN had every told me that I was forbidden from reading a script, as the affidavit stated)

As days passed, emails and messages for readers made it clear than anyone who wouldn't sign this affidavit would no longer be allowed to work for PRN.

As I said earlier, gathering addresses and emails is simply good marketing. But how do they use this contact information? Out of sheer curiousity I signed up at mindandspirit.com to try my free 'mini-readings' and sure enough, the emails started right away. It seems Miss Cleo had a dream she just HAD to share with me, so I should call her NOW for a reading.

I can laugh these off. Some people fall for them. And that's what PRN is counting on.

All of the media online and the commercials for the network make the disclaimer that this is for entertainment purposes only. And the operator who answers the initial call to set up a method of payment is also required to say this. This disclaimer should be taken seriously by those who use these services, no matter how 'real' the commercials might seem.

Most of the people I talked to simply needed someone to listen to them. They wanted HOPE that their lives would be improving, if only a little. So just being a live voice on the other end of the line was enough to keep people from hanging up. I didn't string the callers along with false promises or vague statements -- I simply listened and offered common-sense advice -- that's all most of them really wanted.

To get around the claims of false billing and hassling callbacks, apparently PRN is switching to a completely different format. Soon, possibly this month, interested parties will have to buy Miss Cleo Calling Cards in different time increments.

The pressure to keep a high average call length will be gone, and so will the need to string a caller along just to keep him on the phone. These are definite improvements.

But is having 'Miss Cleo' make her claims any different than hiring celebrity spokespeople to sell cars or to push 1-800-Collect? Probably not. But I've never seen Carrot Top or Tony Danza claim that by calling 1-800-Collect you'll get more than a 'buck or two' in savings. The PRN commercials make much more grandiose claims.

And they're directed at a completely different audience.

Shelley Ontis

c 2002

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Click here if you want to read about PRN's legal battles, some of the claims made by Miss Garen and others, and even 'Miss Cleo's' deposition.

shelleyo@gtec.com

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