I decided to start this post due to me starting to discuss about the above topic in this post on boards.ie.  Given that it was going to be off-topic if I went any further in the post, I decided that this subject deserved its own post on my blog.  Why on my blog?  Well, I am due for an update for starters and secondly, I get the feeling that it may be better off here because at least I know I won’t need to worry about how many characters or words in the thread I created.  The thread in question is located here if you’re reading this directly from the blog; gotta do some linkbacks after all as there’s going to be two sets of comments to read through I’m sure.  Anyway, as I stated in the boards.ie post, I would never charge for my services and nor would the majority of paranormal teams, though a few individuals and/or teams might do.  And while I wouldn’t necessarily charge for my services, I don’t think it’s unfair if the person/organisation who called out the investigator assisted with the travel costs of those who are attending.  I was a little unsure of this at first, but a discussion with Steve Parsons at the ParaCon on Saturday made me feel a little easier about stating this.  As for charging a rather large amount for performing an investigation of a private or commercial location, I do feel that it’s rather unethical to charge lots of money for the service.

Like I said before, travelling to somewhere does cost money and there’s nothing wrong with asking for reimbursement of travel costs; the percentage of which I’d leave to the team and the client to decide seeing as each case is different.  Anyway, while the previously stated method is fair, it’s when investigators start to charge what I’d consider large amounts of money for a service.  In a field that’s still in its relative infancy, I fail to see how a large callout fee can be justified for an investigation that may or may not bring results, and possibly do more harm than good.  At present, there’s no way of telling if a paranormal organisation is legit or not, which brings its own set of dangers.  Any Tom, Dick and Harry can setup what they call a paranormal investigation group and claim to be able to get rid of ghosts.

I’m sure a good few people (from boards.ie) will recognise some of what I’m saying now as being paraphrased from Ciaran O’Keeffe’s and Steve’s talk, which is a huge driving force behind what I’m saying. I do feel like talking about this more, both with people who saw the talk and also those that haven’t, especially as the topic of paying for investigations was brought up in the thread where my response was posted.  Anyway, back to my initial point… because anyone can go around claiming they’re a paranormal investigator (I’m not saying everyone who says they are is a charlatan) and that there’s no regulating body for this sort of thing as of yet, people who don’t know any better have the potential to be conned by unethical individuals which is not right.  Even worse is the issue that they charge for their services and can actually do nothing.

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