The Bible has strong injunctions against consorting with seers and fortune-tellers. Was this because of problems in those days with phony psychics or was this due more to interlopers wishing to discourage people from seeking help from people with an intuitive reach?

It is by far the latter reason and purpose of these injunctions appearing. Such individuals have always been targeted by the church, who seek to have control over their flock and limit their choices in going anywhere except to them as the sole guardians of divine wisdom and truth. The existence of churches is for the purpose of power and control over the masses, and that was done to corral people and keep them complacent in thinking they will get what they need delivered to them for the price of tithing. It is at once a way to humor the humans because of their inherent spirituality needing an outlet, as well as a means to use their own beliefs and ideology in a corrupted way to keep them complacent and contained and away from true solutions for their problems. The interlopers are not aware that the divine is a real force and that the churches and the acts of prayer they promote do have an influence on things for the better. But much of the corruption of religion through encouraging dogma that is negative and destructive and non-divine has undercut the effectiveness of their outreach, and this is most unfortunate, but all too true. The rejection of the intuitive sensing is one example of the corruption at work. After all, prayer is an intuitive outreach, and in that way each person themselves is being a seer or fortuneteller, at least on the requesting end, if not in fact seeing an impression of the future outcome. But the intention is much the same—to tune into something beyond themselves in order to gain. To be sure, there have always been charlatans, but they hardly merit mention in the Bible, especially considering that most intuitives working as helpers and healers are truly honest and working from the heart, and vastly outnumber the scammers who do prey on people. To make a categorical assertion is not even logical. It is somewhat like saying one should avoid all business dealings because one may be cheated. There are con artists always out and about, but to never engage in commerce, or investment, or trusting someone to store your money in a bank, because someone might abscond with your money and never deliver the goods, is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But this is what those words are doing when they undermine categorically relying on those with advanced intuitive abilities to bring information forth to help their fellow humans.