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# The cost of bad luck is resolved in small claims court
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/the-cost-of-bad-luck-is-resolved-in-small-claims-court/
- Published: 2002-07-06T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:27:18.000Z
- Author: John Wood
- Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*FORTUNE TELLER, from page 1 Psychic believer wins case*

With a better fortune teller, Gurpreet Chaddah could have predicted that a legal headache was headed her way.

Chaddah paid Beverly Hills psychic Ross Marks $7,700 in an effort to thwart a run of bad luck. Marks told Chaddah that if she didn’t give her the money, Chaddah would have horrible life tragedies coming to her. Chaddah gave the psychic the money. She thought she could buy protection for her and her family.

“She showed me some of her black magic and told me, ‘Your brother is going to have an accident.’And then she told me, ‘You have a devil inside you,’” Chaddah said. “She just scared me so much.”

Even better, Chaddah thought, was Marks’ guarantee to re-pay some of the money. Marks had told her the only way to avert the bad luck was if the psychic held onto the money for as long as she felt it was necessary, Chaddah reported.

But bad luck came to Chaddah anyway, in the form of her reported failure to get her money back from Marks. Chaddah sued in small claims court this week in an attempt to collect the money she alleged Marks failed to repay her.

So Chaddah forked over the cash under the condition that she would be repaid by Marks in monthly increments. But several months later, Chaddah had only been repaid $2,400.

“She said she was going to give it back,” Chaddah said.

Small Claims Judge Pro Tem Stuart Rissman ruled that Marks must pay Chaddah $5,000 based on her testimony. It also helped greatly that it was a “default” judgment — Marks didn’t show up to the court hearing.

Marks could not be reached for comment. A man answering her phone who identified himself as her brother disagreed with Chaddah’s story, saying Marks and Chaddah met regularly for “like five years,” later acknowledging it had been “two years, maybe three.” He claimed that Chaddah got upset when her boyfriend, with whom Marks had set her up, dumped her. Chaddah then demanded all the money she had given Marks, according to the man.

“We tried to pay her back, we made a settlement, and we were paying her not less than $200 a month,” he said. “Then she decided she wanted all the money at once and my sister can’t afford that.”

Along with the award came some advice: “ My recommendation to you is to be careful who you deal with,” judge pro tem Rissman said.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 6, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/070602.pdf?ref=smdp.com)