Here's What A Mystery Shopper Scam Looks Like
Want to see what a secret shopper scam actually looks like? Tracey sent us scans of the one that arrived in her mailbox today. It included a letter printed on cut-and-paste letterhead, a form, and a check for $4,200. The idea behind this sort of scam—also called an advance fee fraud or wire transfer scam—is to get the victim to deposit the check, wait for it to clear, then wire back the bulk of the money. Weeks or months later, the check will turn out to be fake, and by law the victim owes the bank for the full amount of the check.
As much as we talk about this sort of thing on Consumerist, people still fall for it all the time. Make sure your friends and family know how the mystery shopper scam works so they can protect themselves from it.
My partner received something very interesting from Canada in the mail today. It was a letter from "Experian Consumer Research Group" indicating that she'd shown an interest in being a "mystery shopper." The envelope also contained a realistic-looking check for $4,200. What was she supposed to do with that? Well, $400 was "Probation training first week pay." Other amounts were for mystery shopping at Wal-Mart, Sears and McDonald's. The biggest amount was $3,620 for "Money Gram including service fees." Yep, a wire transfer scam.
Googling the toll-free number in the letter brings up several sites where other people have gotten letters with other cover stories.
I've attached a PDF of everything but the check. I would imagine that Experian, BBB, JPMorgan Chase and other companies referenced in this scam would like to get a piece of these guys. We also got quite a chuckle out of the "Fraud - Prevent It!" postmark in two languages.
Just thought your readers might find this interesting. We'll be turning our stuff over to our state attorney general's office.
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Comments:
I cant believe people fall for these. Why would a company send you X amount of money if it wanted you to take X-Y and send back the difference? They would just send the lesser amount.
Does that not strike all humans as scammy? Why not?
I guess this particular scam is pretty clever. You are also "evaluating" the money wire company as part of your mystery shopper scam. At least that ADDRESSES the suspiciousness but it's a laughable cover story.
Most of the scams don't even do that.
I believe that banks have a hand in this too. Scams like this would have no chance of working if banks didn't release the funds until the check was actually confirmed genuine. Without that, what does "cleared" really mean? I can see unsuspecting victims of this stuff thinking that, if the bank cleared the check, it must be genuine, and spending the money immediately.
For that matter, why does it take "weeks or months" to find out if a check is genuine, in these days of fast internet connections, or even faxes?
@ahoy-captain: They have lots of "explanations". In this one, they send you the extra money so that you can "mystery shop" at Money Gram by sending it back to them. Very trusting of them, isn't it? One of the ways that con men hook people is by appearing to show trust in them first -- and sadly, the more honest you yourself are, the better this tactic works. Of course, they end up with your very real money, you end up holding the bill for the fake check.
Another variant, popular with "overseas eBay buyers" is that they want you to send the goods to their "shipper" in another city, and the check you receive includes an amount for that person's shipping cost, which you are asked to wire to them. Of course the check is fake, and you end up out not only your item but also the shipping fee you wired on.
There's lots more -- the point is, for people who don't read these kind of sites, it's easy for them to come up with a plausible-sounding explanation.
Other gems include typos of company names, such as "JC PENN" and "McDonald".
Give me one good reason banks still have not cracked certified check fraud? It's only been going on for 30+ years. It's not like they can't ...I don't know.. call or cryptographically sign certified check to assure their validity before placing depositors on the hook for fraud.
@snowmoon: Because they don't feel the need to. The way the law is, they're not responsible, so they don't lose any money directly; and it doesn't happen enough that they would lose significant customers over it, so they don't lose much revenue indirectly either.
$400? Ha! I did some secret shopping for a real Canadian firm once. They basically just paid for the meal, which was cool 'cause I had to bring a friend and we had to order alcohol. Totally worth the hour spent writing the report afterward.
Anyone who actually is interested in mystery shopping should check out volition.com. Unfortunately, most mystery shopping assignments only pay about $10.
One of my friends was actually a secret shopper at Jack In The Box and I can confirm that they only reimburse the food and maybe like 100 dollars for a few day's work. It wasn't something ridiculous as 1k+.
The letterhead is from NY, but the letter is from Canada, that should be a red flag.
had an acquaintance speak to me about a craigslist advance fee scam that she almost fell prey to this past weekend. she's selling a car on there & someone from "just across the border" is sending her a check for the value + $2k to "give to the shipper when he arrives".
it took me a full 20 minutes to convince her that it was a scam & i still have the feeling that she's going to try to deposit the check anyway to see if it's legit.
i guess some people just have to learn the hard way...
So what's stopping the "mark" from depositing the cheque and not transferring the money back. Leave it in the account earning interest until it's recorded as a fake cheque and give the money back to the bank, pocketing the interest?
@bruzie: Because knowingly depositing a fake check will get you in a load of trouble with the police.
@Citron: Also the undeliverable address that I want to read as "Four-eighteen east west 18th street".
What's stopping this "mark" (besides integrity) is the $15 my friendly, reasonable-fee community bank charges for depositing a check that winds up bouncing. I'd hate to think what the big boys charge. Check your own bank's schedule for this fee. If you weren't aware of it, it's because nobody has bounced a check on you.
Oh, yeah, what about the interest? Let's say you're making an unrealistically high (nowadays) 3%. In the course of a week (if it takes them that long to discover the fraud), the $4K will earn $2.31 in interest, well under the fee you'll face.
And the bank has every right to adjust the interest accrual to negate the bad deposit. So you probably won't even get your $2.31.
@bruzie: The fee the bank charges for items returned unpaid. If you can get $37.50 for three days interest live it up champ.
@melmoitzen: Wait, 3% interest on a $2000 check is $60 per year, which works out to about $1.10 per week, assuming the interest is calculated weekly (most cases not).
There used to be a way to deposit a check for collection, not for deposit to the account, until the funds were actually collected. That way, if a check was bogus, it would never count as a deposit and not be subject to the bounced deposit charge. Is that still an option with US banks?
re: mac-phisto
Guessing your friend can't see this in HUGE letters at the top of the entire for sale section on Craigslist?
[ OFFERS TO SHIP CARS ARE 100% FRAUDULENT ]
As far as the fake checks, a check cashing place won't take them? It seems like an easy way to scam a scammer. I've never used a check cashing company so someone enlighten me...I'm sure there is a reason you can't...just curious.
As a teller at a local credit union, I saw too many of these. It was my responsibility to protect the members to the best of my ability, and I was able to spot these the moment I was handed them most of the time. It truly is sad that these still work, and people still fall for them. (I admit I was not perfect, when I was still a relatively new teller my very first scam check was accepted BUT I put the check on a 10 day hold so there was no monetary loss.)
More than once I had a member argue with me that it was a "good" check, that the person they had to call first to "activate" the check promised them it was. Really, be suspicious of any checks you receive in the mail that you do not expect, even if it is from a company you recognize.
@veronykah: I was thinking the same thing. In some areas of Chicago, there's a 'check cashing' place on damned near every corner. I imagine they take out a hefty fee, but even still, you'd walk away with a good chunk of cash, and the scammer would be left holding the bag.
@FDCPAGuy: That's "Fraud Prevention". Just the latest postmark; ironic maybe, but nothing sinister here.
snowmoon, how are banks going to crack this fraud? Do you know the amount of checks that run through our financial system a day? Along with that, there are not enough employees in the reconcilement departments at banks to approve every cashier's check that gets sent to them.
Banks only catch onto a bad cashier's check when it does not match the info that the tellers submitted. Also this process only happens when the issuing checks actually gets the presenting check, it could be a couple days after the check was deposited.
dwasifar, the bank will lose money. When the customer's account goes to collections, the bank is out that money until the customer can pay it back. The bank is going to write it off as a lose.
Ways to prevent this fraud from occurring are easier than you think. First off, checks can only be ordered through a bank; no more office supply store checks. Second, close down any non bank wiring company; western union, moneygram, etc. These actions take away the fake checks and the means to get the money.
mac-phisto, I had a customer that had a similar experience. He was smart enough to get us to try and validate the check, which was fake. The check was from some medical university in south carolina, but the car was being shipped to arizona.
The crooks aren't stupid. My family only came aware of this when we moved into a neighborhood of elderly people. Since the move we've gotten two of those check scams in the mail along with hordes of door to door scamm, I mean sellers. Etc.
They target their efforts in areas where they've seen pay off before. It's not totally random where they decide to send the bulk of their junk. If the fishing is good in one spot they go back for more.
Wow, I sent in a bunch of these w/scans to Consumerist last year and they were not newsworthy.
I guess these were prettier.
It looks like the scammers took on the name of a well known company located in London.. [www.experiangroup.com] is a company that does some marketing research for various companies... The logo's are strikingly similar..
So someone may think they are doing a "good" thing by googling the "scammers" (the first relevant result was the link above)... It's too bad 99.9% of people won't check the corporate addresses.... (London, CA, and IL to name a few ...)
@Citron: I have always said: If these scammers learn how to spell and write English correctly, their is going to go up dramatically.
I spoke recently with a woman who got taken for every penny she had by one of these. They game the banking system, typically with International checks or money orders. The thing is, banks will "clear" it if you have the funds to cover it, but it actually takes 30 days for International stuff to really clear through the system, at least with the one I called.
Of course by then she had sent Western Unions for all the amounts and was left with nothing. Worse still in many foreign countries they will let you pick up transfers with no ID. WU and Moneygram should make people listen to a five minute warning before being able to send an International transfer.
@bossco: Not to mention that there's only English. Hello, not including French for a Canadian address where the receiver hasn't indicated a language preference?
@bruzie: Because this kind of scam is designed to exploit honest people (don't believe the old saw that "you can't con an honest man"). There are plenty of other scams that prey on people who are dishonest or who -- like the majority of the world -- think that although something might be marginally dishonest, they can skirt it.
I'm thinking of people, for instance, who think that they can knowingly deposit a bad check and cream the interest until it bounces. I'll bet dollars to donuts that it's only a matter of time before somebody comes up with a scheme that exploits your willingness to do that...
Maybe you can...but why bother? Why risk making trouble for yourself for a measly $2 to $3? That money isn't coming out of the scammer's pocket.
Why can't you just cash the check at one of those check cashing/currency exchange places and scam the scammers? If someone comes after you for the $ later you could just tell them you never received said letter and to piss off.
@ophmarketing: Good luck with that. Ensure you wear a disguise to fool the cameras, a fake ID to fool the check cashing place, and drive to place in a stolen car to fool anybody who sees you go in and come out.
Do you really think the scammer will lose money here? It's not like there's an actual checking account used by the scammer. Forget about the fact that the scammer is in ANOTHER COUNTRY.
Even if the planets align and you manage to pull this off, you're only taking money from the check cashing place. Think they won't come after you to get it back when the check bounces? Especially a CHICAGO check-cashing place?
We got one last week. Took it to post office (it is mail fraud) the day I got it. I wrote VOID on the check. Hopefully they will trace the activation (disposable cell) number before it goes dead.
@JasonRyanIsaksen: "WU and Moneygram should make people listen to a five minute warning before being able to send an International transfer." Sadly some people will hear it but not listen to it. You can only hold people's hands so much unfortunately.
I'm the OP in this post. To those who suggested taking the check to a check-cashing place: why would the scammers be left holding the bag? The check is probably written on a nonexistent account, and the scammers will never be caught. I would also think that even check cashers have ways of verifying a check before they cash it or coming after whoever presented it.
Being a Mystery Shopper is simple.
1. Don't send any personal information
2. Don't send money back
3. Don't do anything illegal
I've been a Mystery shopper before. Once I had to go into Wal-Mart, but a $10 gift card - then go to the gas station & get $10 worth of gas. I then had to write about it, answer some question, and they would send me $10. (This is good - why, even if they don't send the $10, all I wasted was time - since I have to get gas anyway.)
I've also been a mystery shopper for a local Pizza Place - that was nice because they actually sent the coupon ahead of time (to cover the $20 meal), and then send another $25 gift card after the survey... yum...
@theczardictates: Mr. Czar is correct.
In fact, the word "con" is short for "confidence trick": Scams like these are made more effective because the con artist appears to be placing his confidence in you.
@TacoChuck: What happens when a Consumerist commenter leans how to spell and write English correctly?
@Bs Baldwin: Banks know the value of your account at every moment they use monitoring to watch and stop fraud as it happens, but they can't verify the face value and legitimacy of a "certified check" ( not just a personal check ). I call bull. It would take little effort to make appropriate changes to the check cashing and deposit rules to stop this cold.
If the banks can't verify the legitimacy of the check they should not be allowing them to clear. That's a simple change to check clearing rules that could be implemented tomorrow and would stop this kind of scam almost immediately.
On top of this they could easily create some sort of clearing house to validate certified checks, some sort of crypto signature, additional anti-fraud requirements, or many other steps could be required for a 2 day clear. Any or all of these are just a rules change away.
The big companies, like McDonald's have their own mystery buyer people. Besides, I already spent a lot of money to get an education and now you're telling me that I have to send you more money? Hold the pedal there!!! I do not work for AIG, I have no money to return.
No one will give you something for nothing. Forget about somebody giving you something with no strings attached, just because you're pretty. Things don't work that way. Besides, haven't we learned already from the "work from home", "buy a house for $300.00" and the "congratulations you just won the lottery from Themiddleofhell" scams? We need to be a little bit, no, make it a whole lot more street smart.
Doesn't it look a little fishy, eh? When a New York office has a Canadian postmark, eh? There's no doobt-aboot it: Mail Fraud!
@mac-phisto: I got hit with the exact same thing with my old jeep a couple weeks ago.
I event contacted an online consumer advocacy site - Ahem- asking how and who I could contact to sting this yahoo.
I have yet to hear back from the site. not even a "that is not our problem' sort of mail. oh well
So apparently "waiting for the check to clear" doesn't mean what I thought it did, since a check can be not merely written on insufficient funds but completely counterfeit and still "clear." I knew that post-dating a check generally doesn't work because banks don't pay much attention to the date, but this kicks it up a notch. Makes me wonder exactly what services and assurances the bank is and isn't providing to customers.
interesting that the envelope has a 'FRAUD' post mark?