Uncle Ben – the point on checking out if one knows Niglah before giving any credence to their supposed knowledge of Nistar is one that I used to hear regularly from an older relative who was a known Talmid Chacham. Unfortunately, though, I am aware of some fraudsters who are knowledgeable in Torah but have turned it into a shovel to dig with – particularly in the world of “Mekubalim”, where they fool desperate and gullible people into parting with vast sums of money. I therefore think that your statement that “If they ask distraught people for obscene amounts of money or deeds to property that’s a dead giveaway right there” is the truer test than only testing their knowledge of Toras Hanigla.
an Israeli Yid