The ones who go around saying, "Look at me, I'm a psychic!" buy my book, have me on your talk-show?
No.
As others have posted, there is a lot of blatant fraud about psychic abilities. Sylvia Browne proved that in spades. Poor Montel. Dealing with serious MS, he must have been reaching out for anything to believe in. Who knows how much she took him for?
That said, I do not discount the possibility of ESP abilities. There has been credible evidence of certain individuals independently tested by professionals.
(For example, Joseph McMoneagle, the best Operational Remote Viewer in the history of the U.S. Army's Special Project. He described the interior of a top secret Soviet manufacturing plant and accurately predicted a new class of ship under construction—the previously unknown Typhoon Class submarine.)
On a more immediate level, I believe most people have experienced moments of so-called "psychic" episodes. Some people have had it to large extents, like knowing the exact time their twin died (a phenomena widely documented enough to diminish the chance of coincidence), to minor, such as thinking about a friend you've not spoken to in a while phoning shortly before they do. (Again, a phenomena common enough to lower the degree of chance.)
Are people with more finely honed and acute abilities out there? I guess if you agree that ESP may be an uncommonly explored aspect of our natural range of senses, than I guess it becomes expected that some would be more adept than others...
But I doubt they'd go around advertising it.
In fact, they probably live as hermits and go to great lengths to avoid being around each other. In fact, I bet that if one buys a house within a few block radius of another, then there is an unspoken rule that the new one has to move away at their own expense. As a result, you will most often tell these people by the fact that they spend a lot of time driving around/walking around a prospective neighbourhood prior to buying a house there. If you talk to them, they will say something about just getting a ‘feel for the area’. Because they know that if they buy a house and move in anyway, they will be in for a constant battle of wills that can become very draining very quickly. And the guy who was there first most always wins.
in fact, I dated a guy who claimed that he was a psychic and a medium (he could see and speak with the dead) and it took every fiber of my inner Emily Post not to make fun of it.
But as a Psychic he would know what you were thinking anyway. Why not just go for authenticity and do it to his face?
