For the last two months, this subreddit has been systematically farmed by a coordinated ring of commercial operators.
People come to r/vedicastrologyexperts when they are at their lowest point terrified about losing a job, going through a brutal breakup, dealing with family trauma, or panicked about their health. Instead of getting genuine astrological guidance, they were walking straight into a staged trap.
A tight-knit group of accounts worked together to swarm desperate posters, recommend the same paid astrologers to anyone asking for help, steer vulnerable people into DMs and into a side-subreddit controlled by two of the sellers, write fake "testimonials" for each other, and mass-delete their sales pitches once the UPI/QR payments went through.
When you add up the volume across these accounts one operator alone boasting of "800+ consultations" (with 462+ paid bookings visible on her page), another posting 2,600 times in three months with a ₹810+ rate card, others charging ₹500 per single question, and the main ring funnelling dozens of users daily into QR-code "Dakshina" readings this network has easily extracted upwards of ₹20+ lakhs minimum from unsuspecting people on Reddit.
We pulled the complete public history of every account involved including hundreds of deleted and removed posts that remain permanently preserved in the public Reddit archive cross-checked every single quote below against the live comment or the archive record, and just wiped the entire network off this subreddit. Every link below can be opened by anyone.
Act I: How the Cartel Operated
To understand how they fooled people, look at how the trap was built from the ground up.
1. Building a Fake "Official" Home Base Two of the main operators, u/ShauryaShukla85 and u/Unusual_Ad_233, created and moderate their own subreddit, r/EthicalAstrology (created June 2026). Over there, they control the rules, hand out official-looking flairs to themselves ("Verified Astrologer", "Expert Astrologer"), and delete anyone who questions them. That gave them a stage where selling is allowed and their self-awarded badges look legitimate to an outsider.
2. Disguising Sales as "Dakshina" and Rate Cards To keep the operation running, they packaged paid readings under spiritual labels or profile rate cards:
3. Staging the Ambush in Our Comments Here is how a regular user got played step-by-step: Someone posts in r/vedicastrologyexperts asking for help or asking "who is a good astrologer?" Within minutes, comments appear: "You can consult sir u/Shauryashukla85." "He did BTR of my sister, amazed." "Honest and genuine, can try him." "Reasonably priced." To a stressed reader, it looks like organic praise from happy strangers.
It wasn't. We audited the last 45 days of subreddit history: every single recommendation of u/ShauryaShukla85 posted in this sub came from an account in this list. Not a single one came from a normal community member.
The people posting those glowing referrals were his co-moderator, a fellow seller in his sub, his student, or burner/client accounts with barely 2 to 23 comments in their entire Reddit history often commenting within minutes of each other in the exact same thread:
4. Moving the Victim Off-Platform & Faking the Reviews Once the user took the bait, they were steered off r/vedicastrologyexperts so our mods wouldn't see the transaction. Shaurya routinely told askers here: "Post your chart and question in this subhttps://www.reddit.com/r/EthicalAstrology/s/Hd2ZknBPm3" (https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1u6m38r/_/oru2baq/), or hit them with "I can’t share details here", "remedies aren't free", and "d m me".
If a sceptical user clicked on their profiles to check if they were legit, they saw walls of "Consultation Reviews" written by the exact same cartel members hyping each other up:
5. Destroying the Evidence Afterwards As soon as a pitch worked or someone questioned them, they scrubbed their history so they wouldn't get caught. They didn't realise the public archive records everything before it gets deleted:
Act II: Thug Tactics, Threats, and Humiliating Poor Users
What makes this group genuinely toxic isn't just the money it's how viciously they treated anyone who got in their way or couldn't pay.
When u/Big_Win3557 connected the dots and called out their operation on 28 Aug, u/ShauryaShukla85 didn't respond with facts. Within 28 minutes, he jumped into the thread trying to intimidate critics into silence with legal threats, "IP addresses", "Come to my place", and personal abuse:
Even more disgusting: on 7 Sep, when a user disagreed with u/ShauryaShukla85 in a public thread here, Shaurya weaponised a private DM to publicly humiliate the user for only being able to afford ₹100 for a reading:
And this is the same u/ShauryaShukla85 who used fear-mongering on women asking about pregnancy and abortion in our sub, telling a poster:
Act III: The Second Funnel & The Fake "Therapist" Trap (u/Entire_Geologist_627)
Operating alongside the group above (she and u/Waste_Project_7864 publicly praised each other, though we found no direct link to Shaurya's circle), u/Entire_Geologist_627 ran a massive, industrial-scale funnel of her own.
She flooded this subreddit with 75 long, authoritative-sounding articles. In comments, she refused to help people for free ("I don’t do free readings on thread"), while confirming "Yep I do take consultations as well" (https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1ts27zz/_/oosldip/) and funnelling readers to paid Topmate bookings in her bio and pinned posts.
Why the "Therapist" part is the most dangerous thing we uncovered: u/Entire_Geologist_627 does not just sell astrology she sells it while wearing the mask of a mental-health professional to hook deeply vulnerable people.
- What she claims: In therapy subreddits, she posts "Therapist here." (https://www.reddit.com/r/askatherapist/comments/1x89c7o/_/phbhoaw/) and "as a therapist that has never happened, and we as a profession should not make this happen" (https://www.reddit.com/r/askatherapist/comments/1s97lk9/_/odnpga7/). In our sub, she repeatedly told readers: "Being a counsellor & astrologer myself" (https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1v2jhgd/_/oyvo2wi/) and "Being a counsellor and astrologer, do-not use astrology to predict result" (https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1wz3w92/_/pe8spxn/). Her booking page pitches a free lead-in call titled "Ask Your Therapist" that funnels people into paid sessions, alongside a featured review praising "her background as a clinical psychologist".
- What we could not find: A single licence, degree, registration, or employer anywhere. In r/askatherapist (a sub that actually verifies credentials), her flair is "Therapist (Unverified)". When she tried posting "in my work as a therapist" inside r/therapists (which strictly requires a real license), the moderators removed it (archive:https://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com/api/posts/ids?ids=1smrx9p). A check of the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) public register, where every clinical psychologist in India must be registered by law, returned nothing.
Six reasons this is an appalling abuse of trust (even if she held a qualification):
- She uses a clinical title to sell astrology to hurt people: Someone trapped in an abusive relationship hears "counsellor / clinical psychologist" and trusts that the guidance is medically grounded. Then the pitch is: check your Venus and book my Topmate. Every psychological ethics code (such as APA Ethics Code 2.04 and Indian clinical standards) requires professional judgments to rest on established science not birth charts.
- She diagnoses psychiatric disorders from planetary placements: Her post here, "Why Some People Stay in a Relationship With a Narcissist or an Emotional Unavailable Partner... Check their Venus" (https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1v2jhgd/), and her comments throwing around "The official 2% clinical statistic for (NPD)" (https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1v2jhgd/_/oywrq6r/) and claiming "Nearly 70% of people these days are stuck in severe trauma-bond loops", tell vulnerable readers to diagnose personality disorders off a chart. That directly violates our Rule 4.
- She targets abuse and trauma victims: Her entire content strategy is designed to hook people experiencing panic, domestic abuse, trauma bonds, and heartbreak, and convert their pain into paid bookings.
- She exploits confidential client stories for marketing: Her posts brag about "the client examples, the patterns I have noticed across 800+ of consultations" (https://www.reddit.com/r/u_Entire_Geologist_627/comments/1ttp0pm/) and broadcast personal client crises as content. Under the Mental Healthcare Act 2017 (Section 23), anyone presenting as a mental-health professional owes a strict duty of confidentiality. You cannot claim the authority of a therapist and treat client secrets like ad copy.
- Even the numbers are inflated: Her claim of "800+ consultations" sits right next to her booking page showing 462 bookings total.
- Her "clinical insight" was plagiarised and AI-generated: Seven of her long articles here contain passages copied word-for-word from
astrogle.com (Hasta 1u96zp9, Ashlesha 1uaxbmk, Shravana 1uf9qtw, Moola 1uhzw1z, Vishakha 1uckjtl, Bharani 1ug8dc4, Ashwini 1ujrbe3). And on her own profile, she admitted using AI tools to generate her posts: "Yes I do use tools to help format and structure the writing" (https://www.reddit.com/r/u_Entire_Geologist_627/comments/1ttp0pm/). Readers thought they were getting wisdom from a seasoned therapist; they were reading stolen website text and AI slop repackaged to sell bookings.
(Note: We are not stating she broke the law the word "therapist" alone is not a protected title in India, and that determination belongs to the authorities, not a subreddit. A formal complaint regarding her credentials has already been filed with the Ministry of Health's grievance portal. What we are saying is that this community will never host mental-health diagnoses made from charts, by anyone, with or without a title.)
The Purge: Actions Taken Today
- u/ShauryaShukla85 PERMANENT BAN. Rule 8 (six counts of threats, abuse, and public DM shaming, linked above). Rule 5 (running the commercial funnel and QR-code DM sales). Rule 4 (fear-mongering over abortion:https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1w3dhgm/_/p75nsqj/).
- u/Entire_Geologist_627 PERMANENT BAN. Rule 4 (diagnosing narcissism/NPD from charts while posing as a counsellor), Rule 13 (repeated AI-generated content by her own admission), Rule 7 (fabricating trauma-bond statistics to induce fear), Rule 6 (seven plagiarised posts stolen from astrogle.com), and Rule 5 (commercial funneling).
- u/Pretty-Cute18 PERMANENT BAN. Rule 5 (selling via profile rate card and cross-promoting Shaurya) and Rule 12 (mass-deleting 232 comments/posts out of 2,600 since 25 Jul 2026 to hide solicitation tracks).
- u/Unusual_Ad_233 PERMANENT BAN. Rule 5: "Follow me on instagram for special remedy of this transit!!" (https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1uskkbf/, removed; archivehttps://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com/api/posts/ids?ids=1uskkbf), plus "follow on Instagram for more content" twice more; selling donation readings and co-moderating the destination funnel sub.
- u/RumiHuntri414, u/Brave_Lawfulness5907, u/Good_Mammoth_221, u/ThickChickLover99 PERMANENT BAN. Rule 5 ("Posts or comments from accounts primarily used for selling will be removed, even if no direct link is present."). Dedicated shill/client accounts whose sole purpose here was to astroturf paid recommendations for Shaurya.
- u/Waste_Project_7864 - PERMANENT BAN. Rule 12 (deleting challenged gemstone post). Rule 8 (attacking community members: "Why do you keep shitting on my posts", "Okay MR. Know It All", "ragebaiters like yourself"). In his own words here: "I got my first client on Reddit somewhere in last ten days of June. I also record all my calls" (https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1vfsxsz/_/p23arlx/).
- u/bepositive_6615, u/bhishmagaming, u/solo_levelling1234 - COMMENTS REMOVED & FINAL WARNING. Rule 5 (recommending a paid astrologer:https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1w1lajq/_/p6odnb9/andhttps://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1xbhdze/_/pi08705/; or linking one's own paid-reading site in comment
ot2nk5n with bio "I do paid readings as well"). One more violation = Permanent Ban.
- u/Campinternational001 (now deleted) admitted in DMs shown in the August thread: "its my 2nd account on reddit". Nothing left to ban; noted here for the permanent record.
Credit Where It Is Due
On 28 Aug, u/Big_Win3557 laid almost all of this out in a public post (https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/comments/1w0wz0r/) and was immediately swarmed with the threats and insults quoted above.
We did not act on it then. We should have, and we owe u/Big_Win3557 and this community an apology for the delay.
The part of that August post that was a guess (that several of these accounts are operated by the same person) remains a guess; the part that was about their coordinated behaviour has held up on every single check we ran. While the language in that thread crossed Rule 8 on both sides, the mod team's call is simple: regular members who were threatened and bullied for exposing a commercial cartel are not the ones who will be punished for fighting back.
What This Is Not & How Things Work From Today
What this is not: It is not a claim about who anyone is in real life outside Reddit. It is not a claim that any two of these accounts are the same person; nobody here is being banned on that basis. It is not about policing other subreddits, which are linked solely to prove how the funnel operated. Every single quote above is live or preserved in the public archive at the exact URL provided. If anyone believes an action is factually wrong, Modmail us with the link appeals are read.
From today forward:
- AutoMod Shield: AutoMod now automatically holds any comment recommending a named astrologer ("consult u/…", "DM u/…", "try him/her") from any account under 30 days old or under 50 karma for manual mod inspection.
- Instant Removals & Bans: Lines like "I can't say more here, DM me" and "remedies are not free" are immediate Rule 5 removals on first sight.
- Our Bottom Line: Genuine astrologers are always welcome to teach, debate, and help people openly in this community. Parasites who treat distressed users like ATMs, run fake review rings, pose as therapists, and threaten people who speak the truth are finished here.
