Consider this article: thestar.com blathers on in an interview with Sylvia Browne. The article is completely sympathetic to Browne. It just assumes that she is not a fraud. Not a single critical question is asked of her and her claim that psychics can't see into their own future is just accepted on face value, despite that being the most useless cop-out in psychic history. (though it does explain all her mistakes). Heck, the dumb interviewer even asks "Aren't some psychics bogus?" The true answer is, yes, they are all bogus. But Sylvia is somehow exempt from bogosity because she successfully ripped off enough people that she has money, and thus is somehow better than the so-called "someone with a cardboard table with cards".
I don't need to go into detail about her many errors. Wikipedia's article about her lists several examples and includes a link to a study that shows how her success rate at solving crimes is pretty much zero. She's been wrong very many times:
- She claimed this couple's son was dead, when he wasn't. Then she asked them for money for additional help ($700/hour)
- She claimed a woman's husband drowned, that his spirit says he couldn't breathe, he was in water, when in fact he was a fireman who died in the 9/11 attacks
- She claimed a young man died in a "shaft", across a state line, when in fact he drowned.