Man says supposed psychic appeared at mum’s wake, later learns he works as an insurance agent: ‘He claimed he could talk to her’

SINGAPORE: A Singaporean man has gone viral after sharing a strange and upsetting experience from his mother’s wake, where a visitor claimed he could communicate with the deceased.

His post on Reddit’s r/askSingapore forum quickly gained traction, pulling in more than 2,200 upvotes and hundreds of comments within a day.

The man shared that his mother passed away a week earlier after a blood vessel burst in her brain. In the days that followed, everything happened at breakneck speed.

From rushing to the ICU and arranging the funeral to collecting her ashes, he said the entire week felt like he was being swept along by events he could barely process.

The wake, he added, was one of the few moments when his family finally had some quiet time to sit with their grief.

“Only Mum’s wake gave my family some time to ourselves,” he wrote. “This is when we were at our most vulnerable, alone with our thoughts, looking for answers.”

A man with a ‘third eye’

According to the man, things took an unexpected turn on the third day of the wake.

A female relative told him she had a friend with a “third eye” who could supposedly see things others could not. Grieving and desperate for the chance to connect with his mother one last time, he agreed to meet him.

When the psychic arrived, however, he became sceptical.

“He turned out to be a chubby Chinese 30-something-year-old, dressed in a black shirt and black shorts. He wore a gold chain around his neck, and his hair was immaculately gelled up into one of the typical property agent hairstyles. He looked like someone who had just been pulled away from a late-night drinking session at Tanjong Pagar, showing off his latest deals.”

More than his appearance, it was his demeanour that immediately put him on guard.

The psychic, he said, carried himself with an air of authority, but something felt off.

“Maybe his third eye is different, but the two eyes I could see were not kind eyes,” he wrote. “There was a hunger inside them and a tightness around them that betrayed that their owner wanted something.”

‘Can you give me any form of OTP at all?’

Wanting proof before believing any claims, the man decided to test him.

He asked whether the psychic could tell him the “telephone number of his childhood home,” reasoning that his mother would know the answer.

In response, the psychic said that “that was not how his abilities worked.”

He also told him, “Hey, I came to pay respects to your mother. And I am not charging you any money. Don’t mind me saying, but this is very offensive to me.”

“Do you know I am actually Catholic? I was born with this ability to see things, that’s why I am here.”

Determined to get some sort of confirmation, the man tried asking him once more: “I am sorry, but even when DBS call me, they also need to authenticate by OTP before they start discussing with me my banking stuff. Can you give me any form of OTP at all?”

His scepticism did not go down well.

According to the post, the psychic’s wife became angry and told him, “Do you know this is very offensive to us? You are being very rude.”

One sentence that changed everything

Eventually, the man gave up trying to verify the psychic’s claims and asked him a simple question instead.

If he could really communicate with his mother, what message did she have for him?

After a pause, the visitor reportedly replied: “Your mum tells you to let go.”

That answer shattered whatever hope the grieving son still had.

“The expression on his face was that of a man thinking what to say, not remembering what he heard,” he wrote.

Angry and overwhelmed, he confronted the visitor and told him to leave.

“He and his wife left the wake with my firm offer to meet again when it is his own mum’s turn to lie dead before us, and I can repay the ‘favour’ he just did to me.”

Then came the twist

The story might have ended there, but the man later discovered something that made him question the visitor’s motives even more.

He found out the stranger was an insurance agent.

While he acknowledged that he could not prove any ill intent, he questioned why someone would show up at a funeral, claim to communicate with the dead, and then turn out to work in a profession built around selling financial protection.

“Putting two and two together, the best time to sell someone insurance is when one of their loved ones has just died, especially when it is a sudden and unexpected death like my Mum’s,” he said.

“Competing in an arena of thousands and thousands of gelled-up, gold chain-wearing agents selling a homogeneous product, ‘talking to the dead’ as a method to acquire and nurture leads is a sales strategy so despicable it actually beggars belief. I cannot prove his intentions. But what is clear is that he has an obvious financial and monetary incentive to do what he did,” he added.

A final message

The man ended his post with a warning for others to stay vigilant even during life’s darkest moments.

“There is nothing so sacred—even your own mum’s death—that someone out there will not use to make money off you. Take care, everyone. Watch out for evil things that come in the darkest times, when you expect only good people to turn up.”

“I am reminded of an interview I read sometime ago about UN peacekeepers accused of murder and rape and other crimes. The interviewee said that peacekeeping attracts two types of people: angels and demons. So do funerals, it seems. P.S. This is also your sign to call your parents and arrange a meal together, if you are lucky enough to have them around.”

“Good on you for calling him out on his bluff.”

In the comments, some Singaporean Redditors said they were repulsed by the insurance agent’s alleged behaviour, but not exactly shocked by it.

One commenter wrote that people like this often target families when they are emotionally overwhelmed and least likely to question what’s happening.

“It’s almost always guaranteed that such individuals are in it to prey on families that are going through tough times. It’s your own family private affair, tell them to [leave], and don’t be shy of offending.”

Another commenter took issue with the man’s claim that being Catholic somehow made him more believable.

“Of course, this is a scam. The minute he said I’m a Catholic, he saboo himself,” the commenter wrote. “No real Catholic will ever do that. There are lots of scammers pretending to be priests or from church, asking for money. Please do not believe any Tom Dick or Harry. We need to be on our guard all the time. Evil people are everywhere!””

Others were simply appalled that someone would approach a grieving family with such claims in the first place.

One Redditor said: “I’m so sorry for your loss, and I’m also sorry you encountered such a revolting, opportunistic vulture at such a vulnerable time. Good on you for calling him out on his bluff on the spot, and for sharing this with us.”/TISG

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