Mystery Shopper Scam - [email protected]

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:43:17 +0000
Subject: START WORK
From: [email protected]
To: Michelle Banks

Hello,

Work for just 2 hours a week and make 500 pounds. You have been selected for your first assignment as a Mystery Shopper.You will earn
500 by been a mystery shopper per assignment. Your employment packet include business evaluation form, a training assignment which will be send to you after you received payment for the assignment. Paycheck would be sent to you for the assignment by Certified Check .The paycheck would be 4000 pounds, you are to deduct your 500 pounds salary,and the rest would be used for the evaluation at the store that would be sent to you.Your Employment packet are as follows :
1. Business evaluation form: This is the form you are required to fill after you visit any shopping mall in your area, you would
be given the store name and address. You are required to evaluate its customer service and quality control after their services are rendered
to you. You would required to fill a form to rate the employee(s), the form would be given to you after the evaluation:

2. Training Assignment: You are hired to evaluate the quality of services of the store or mall that would be given to you . You are
needed to rate the employees. Please note, this is a part-time activity.Email me the below details:
FULL NAME:
FULL ADDRESS:
CITY:
POST CODE:
COUNTRY :
PHONE NUMBER:
AGE:

We will be looking forward to receive the above information through our Email email

Sincerely,
WORK HR3252
HR DEPARTMENT

START WORK

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 10:00:49 +0000
Subject: START WORK...MYSTERY SHOPPER.
From: [email protected]
To: Michelle Banks

Hello,
We confirm from Our post that the first mystery shopper payment have been deliver to your home address,So we want you to get back to us immediately you recieved the payment.We await your reply asap.


WORK HR3252
HR DEPARTMENT

START WORK...MYSTERY SHOPPER.

I actually was foolish enough to fall for this one as it was advertised in my local paper, thought it was too good to be true (and turned out i was right) but desperate times means desperate measures lol, anyway i sent the details they asked for and would you believe it i recieved a cheque in the post i didn't put the money in my usual account i opened a new account (looks like that was a good idea as there is no money going in or out) i put the cheque in on 29th december with the weekend and bank holiday monday it should have cleared by weds 5 jan2011. i recieved this e-mail on the 3rd jan


Hello,
We confirm today that the payment have cleared in your account,so we want you to send us the first assignment report today.

HR REP.

any respectable company would know all about how banks process cheques so the alarm bells started to ring all i am glad about is that i opened that new account as it is worthless i will close it now and get back on the jobseekers

Welcome to Scamwarners.
You spotted it as a scam in time to avoid losing money. Which is more than some people do. Well done!

Thanks Arnold, yeh some do get caught out sending personal and bank details out but i guess after 5 years on the dole you want to try anything, in my heart i thought it was too good to be true i mean £500 a week for 2-3 hours work...if only huh

It would be a good idea to let your bank know what's gone on, otherwise they could suspect that YOU were trying to scam them. That's the nasty sting in the tail of this type of scam, but thankfully you realised before you withdrew any cash.

Hard times make it so that people are more likely to fall for scams they wouldn't normally go for and scammers prey on people's weaknesses.

i have this morning recieved a letter from my bank and a copy of the cheque i paid in, it was issued by kaupthing singer and friedlander bank based on the Isle of man, i looked them up just 5 mins ago and it seems they went into administration in 2008.
on the cheque the company name is 'marjacq scripts limited' (which is nothing to do with mystery shopping) so im guessing these scammers have got hold of some dodgy cheques from somwhere, i will be informing my bank about this and hope they can put a top to it (although unlikely).
oh one more thing i was supposed to send money through western union but the address which they gave me was false there was no such road in croydon

oh one more thing i was supposed to send money through western union but the address which they gave me was false there was no such road in croydon

That's the whole point of the scam. There's never a genuine reason to bank a check and send some of the proceeds on by Western Union. But doing so as a "mystery shopper" is the most plausible pretext for doing so that I know of.
WU payments can be collected more or less anywhere in the world, regardless of the address given.

yep i can see the reasoning in that but why cancel the cheque? do they think i have £3050 to send to someone before the cheque clears ? lol if i had that sort of money i doubt if i would be out of work, to my thinking i wonder if they can somehow get hold of your bank details by me putting the cheque in and then the bank presenting the cheque, seems strange that would just send the cheque and then cancel without getting some sort of orofit out of it.

good site this have learnt a lot by looking through it

The scam relies on the cheque appearing to clear, and only being found to be bogus after the victim has sent most of the proceeds back to the scammer by Western Union.
Its a very common and successful scam in the States. I imagine it must happen in the UK, but I haven't seen any reports of it.