It's likely pseudoscience if somebody wants to sell you something too good to be true. I'm thinking of magnet belts that work your abs while you watch television. Or, maybe those healing crystals which claim to "heal the planet one person at a time". The "platonic solid crystal" is only $100-- would you cheat yourself out of all that peace and harmony for a measly one hundred dollars? The FAQ for the crystals promises the store owners personally pray over each crystal before shipping it. They have some amazing claims. But why isn't this real science?Well, real science has to be measurable. Quantifiable. You need to be able to repeat the results. When they measure the crystals at healingcrystals.com, they use the wrong end of the ruler intentionally, because "the numbers 11 and 12 have a positive healing vibration". How do they base such a claim? Do numbers vibrate? Can we measure that? Can we demonstrate that in ANY way? At this point, we have to say that this kind of therapy would be pseudoscience, bordering on some type of religion. There's an element of faith in it, faith that the crystals can bring some type of healing.
In this way, pseudoscience has a tendency to be abused for monetary gain. Since you don't have to base your claims on real research-- verifiable claims folling the scientific method-- you can really say whatever you want. Snake oil, tonics... You would think that as society becomes more modern, peoople would become savvy enough to outsmart the con-men, but the con-men are getting smarter, too. Sometimes, they even steal people's good name and claim that the person has endorsed them. That actually happened to my professor!
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