Several people have reported getting text messages offering mystery shopper jobs paying $50 an hour. Tempting, but what do we know about things that sound too good to be true? That’s right: They usually are too good to be true.

People who respond to the text message by calling the phone number given are asked for personal information, including credit card and bank account numbers. (Note: real mystery shopping companies do ask for personal information, including Social Security Numbers, but they do not recruit by sending random text messages and they do not guarantee $50 an hour.)

If you receive a text message offering $50 an hour (or some other ridiculous amount of money) to mystery shop, do not respond. Just hit delete.

Scammers are always looking for new victims. Don’t let them find you.

The mystery shopper scam and others like it have taken millions of dollars from people all over the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and elsewhere around the world. Often, the victims of these scams are the people who can least afford to be taken for thousands of dollars. So, when someone comes along saying that they have been authorized to repay the money that was scammed from them, these victims may line up to get scammed again.

I get many emails a week that are similar to the one below. In each case, there are signs that this is yet another scam; however, someone who is desperate could overlook those signs, just as they did the first time they got caught up in one of these schemes.

Take a look at the scam email, then I will point out some of the signs that it is not a legitimate offer:

from        ECONOMIC ANDFINANCIAL CRIMES COMMISSION demo@hinet.net
reply-to    wu_paying.funds@qatar.io
date        Thu, May 19, 2011 at 8:10 PM
subject    ATTENTION!!! STOP ALL TRANSACTION

Attention,

The Federal Government of Nigeria through provisions in Section 419 of the Criminal Code came up with punitive measures to deter and punish offenders.The Advance Fee Fraud section deal mainly with cases of advance fee fraud(commonly called 419) such as obtaining by false pretence through different fraudulent schemes e.g. contract scam, credit card scam, inheritance scam, job scam, loan scam, lottery scam, “wash wash” scam (money washing scam), marriage scam. Immigration scam, counterfeiting and religious scam. It also investigates cyber crime cases.

This is to officially announce to you that some scam Syndicates were apprehended in Lagos, Nigeria few days ago and after several interrogations and tortures your details were among those mentioned by some of the scam Syndicates as one of the victims of their operations.

After proper investigations and research at Western Union Money Transfer and Money Gram office to know if you have truly sent money to the scam Syndicates through Western Union Money Transfer or Money Gram, your name was found in Western Union Money Transfer database amongst those that have sent money through Western Union Money Transfer to Nigeria and this proves that you have truly been swindled by those unscrupulous persons by sending money to them in the course of getting one fund or the other that is not real, right now we are working hand in hand with Western Union and Interpol to track every fraudsters down, do not respond to their e-mails, letters and phone calls any longer they are scammers and you should be very careful to avoid being a victim to fraudsters any longer because they have nothing to offer you but to rip-off what you have worked hard to earn.

In this regard a meeting was held between the Board of Directors of The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and as a consequence of our investigations it was agreed that the sum of Two hundred thousand US Dollars (US$200,000) should be transferred to you out of the funds that Federal Government of Nigeria has set aside as a compensation to everyone who have by one way or the other sent money to fraudsters in Nigeria.

We have deposited your fund at Western Union Money Transfer agent location EMS Post office Lagos, Nigeria. We have submitted your details to them so that your fund can be transferred to you.

Contact the Western Union agent office through the email address stated below inform them about this notification letter and the transfer of your fund;

Email: wu_paying.funds@qatar.io

Yours sincerely,
Sarah White (Miss)
Assistant Investigation Officer.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
15A Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.
Nigeria

http://www.efccnigeria.org

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Please note that some fraudsters are claiming to be Directors or staff of The Ecomomic and Financial Crimes Commission have recently been sending phony e-mails/letters and also calling unsuspecting persons, with intent to defraud them. It is important to note that these fraudsters are criminals engaged in Advanced Fee Fraud known in Nigeria as 419. Every day, people throughout the world are falling victim to scams of one kind or another. But remember – if it sounds too good to be true, it is probably a scam. In the circumstance, we unreservedly advice you to dissociate yourselve from all correspondence and transactions entered into based on evidently fraudulent and fictitious claims.
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“This e-Mail may contain proprietary and confidential information and is sent for the intended recipient(s) only. If, by an addressing or transmission error, this mail has been misdirected to you, you are requested to delete this mail immediately. You are also hereby notified that any use, any form of reproduction, dissemination, copying, disclosure, modification, distribution and/or publication of this e-mail message, contents or its attachment(s), other than by its intended recipient(s), is strictly prohibited. Any opinions expressed in this email are those of the individual and not necessarily of the organization. Before opening attachment(s), please scan for viruses.”
All business handled under Standard Trading Conditions. Copy available on request.
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Wow, this comes from the government of Nigeria and it must be official, because they even warn me to beware of people trying to scam me by impersonating them. They are clearly looking out for my best interests–why, they even tortured the guy who stole my money! It’s all good. NOT!

This email uses several of the typical con artist tricks to get your trust. In this case, they claim to represent the government of Nigeria. Similar scams say that the funds are coming through the International Monetary Fund, the FBI or the Better Business Bureau. No matter what agency they say they represent, note that the email addresses never match the agency website, and are usually free addresses, such as Yahoo.

They also attempt to make themselves look legitimate by using lots of legal-ish language, such as the warnings about scams and the privacy notice.

They seem to have information they would only have if they were who they claim to be. How could they know you were a scam victim if they had not actually seen the Western Union records? (Hint: I get several of these a week, and I have NEVER been a victim of this scam. It is simply a phishing expedition.)

They offer a ridiculous amount of compensation. Most scam victims did not lose anything close to $200,000, so why would they pay that much to everyone, regardless of the amount they were swindled out of? They are appealing to the victim’s greed just as they appeal to a desire for revenge by mentioning that they tortured the scammer.

Some of these warn the recipient that they are not to disclose this “offer” to anyone. Why do you think they do not want you to tell anyone about your good fortune? That’s right–because they may see what you did not: That this is nothing but a scam to take more of your cash.

The bottom line? Anytime an email mentions funds to be sent (to you or by you) via Western Union or MoneyGram, it is a scam. Delete it and move on. If you think that something may be legitimate, check it out first. Copy and paste some of the email text into a search engine and see what comes up. Often, such a search will bring up sites like this one, warning you about the scam. Talk to a trusted friend or adviser to see what they think. Contact law enforcement and ask them about it.

Be careful to whom you entrust your personal information. And NEVER wire money to anyone you do not know personally, no matter what their story is.

What would happen if I cashed the check in but never wired the money to anyone? Just kept it to myself. The thought came up but I wouldn’t ever do it.

Cashing the check would be a bad idea, and I am glad that this commenter understood that. My response was that there is no money to keep–the check would eventually be returned and the bank would take back any money they had given, as well as charging fees on the returned check. And it could be worse than that.

Here is a news story from New Mexico television station KOB4 about what happened when one woman decided that she would “scam the scammers.”

The bottom line on this is that the woman who was arrested knew that someone was trying to scam her. She thought she would be clever and use the cash from the check to pay her bills and buy things. Apparently she had not considered the part about the check being worthless. And that passing a forged check is a crime.

Her bail was set at $2500–ironically, the same amount as the fake check she tried to cash.

Stevan P. Todorovic, 40, was sentenced by United States District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. In sentencing Todorovic, Judge Hatter noted that, in addition to taking money from victims, Todorovic caused a “loss of hope, a loss of opportunity.”

Last July, a federal jury convicted Todorovic of seven counts of wire fraud and three counts of mail fraud for making false promises to people seeking work.

According to Federal investigators, Todorovic set up two companies—American Bartending Institute and Consumer Response Group—to sell bogus training programs and job referrals. Todorovic placed advertisements in newspapers across the country offering bartending and mystery shopper jobs. Those who responded to the ads were misled into beliveing they had to purchase Todorovic’s certification programs in order to receive referrals to businesses that wanted to hire bartenders or mystery shoppers. The certifications, however, were not recognized by legitimate mystery shopping companies or other businesses, and Todorovic had no jobs to offer.

Before paying for any training or service, ask questions. Who is behind the offer? What is their experience or what credentials do they have? Who recognizes a certification? Watch for someone who is making promises they can not keep, such as promising jobs or income.

Although this one scammer is off the streets, there are still hundreds out there, trying to get your money. Exercise caution when you are working with an unfamiliar person or organization. Check them out carefully.

Back in January, Kathy Jones of Chesterfield, Virginia wired $4680 via Western Union as part of what she thought was a mystery shop. You know the rest, right? Shortly after sending the money, her credit union informed her that the check she had received bounced and she would have to repay the money.

The happy twist?

The scammer never picked up the money. Usually the scammers pick up the cash immediately after the victim lets them know it was sent. Once the money has been picked up, it is gone and there is no chance the victim will get it back. However, because Jones’ scammer forgot or got nervous or for some unknown reason never picked up the cash, she got lucky.

A Richmond, VA detective discovered the unclaimed cash and advised Jones to cancel the transfer. She did, and Western Union returned the money to her. Now she has the cash to pay back her credit union.

Don’t count on the next scammer being this lazy, stupid or unlucky. However, if you are reading this immediately after wiring money to a scammer (and if you wired money to someone you do not know, you wired money to a scammer) IMMEDIATELY call the transfer company (e.g., Western Union, MoneyGram) and try to cancel the transfer.

Getting potential victims to trust them is easier than you might think. For one thing, honest people may not understand how scams work, and may be less likely to spot the signs of a scam. And most people expect others to act as they do. Because most people are basically honest, they expect that others they encounter will also be honest. Scammers use that against their victims.

Let’s look at some typical scammer tricks and how they are used in secret shopper scams.

They use the names of legitimate mystery shopping companies. Many of the emails and checks in secret shopper scams carry the names of genuine companies. However, the mailings do not come from those companies. The recipients often research the company name, find it is a legitimate secret shopping company, and assume that they have received a real mystery shopper job.

They claim to work with large, respected companies. The “assignments” from the scammers are typically to mystery shop WalMart, McDonalds, Sears and other established and trusted retailers.

They use authority symbols. The emails from scammers use copyright notices, trademark symbols and even logos of the Mystery Shopping Providers Association or the Better Business Bureau. Those symbols convey authority and inspire trust.

They offer rewards that are out of line with the effort expected. When someone offers to pay you hundreds of dollars for working a couple of hours, that is a tip-off that you may be dealing with a scam. Especially when you had no in-person interview, no special skills are required, and the opportunity arrived seemingly from nowhere. They promise high pay to get potential victims to ignore the red flags they see going up. (Of course, there isn’t any pay because the check they send is forged.)

While I don’t want to recommend that you become cynical and never trust anyone, it pays not to take everything at face value. If you get an offer (not just a mystery shopper job, but any offer) that looks too good to be true, then you should check it out. But check it out correctly.

Go online and do a search for the name of the company. If nothing comes up, that is not a good sign. If you find a company website, compare the contact information on the website to the email or letter you received.

If you are not sure if the offer came from the real company or a scammer, call the real company by using the contact information you found online.

Do not search only for information about the company name you were given. Do an online search for relevant phrases to see if others have reported scams. For example, in a search for “mystery shopper check,” nine of the top ten results in Google are about secret shopper scams.

Talk to a trusted friend or relative. Many scam victims did not talk about their big “opportunity” with anyone prior to getting involved. Someone else may see the telltale warning signs that you missed because you wanted the offer to be real.

Most of all, listen to that little voice inside you. It is smarter than you may think. Intuition picks up on many things our conscious minds miss or choose to ignore. If something doesn’t look or feel right, do not proceed until you have thoroughly checked things out. And if the person who contacted you is pushing you to act right now or miss the opportunity, well, that is just one more sign that it is a scam.

The use of the MSPA name is clearly an attempt to make the scam look legitimate to people who are not acquainted with secret shopping, or have just a vague awareness of it. Doing a search for Mystery Shopping Providers Association or MSPA would show that MSPA is a legitimate organization. That might cause an unsuspecting person to believe the scam is a real offer.

Here are the things that should tip you off that this is a scam:

The email is badly written, with misspellings, improper capitalization and other errors.

Although the email claims to be from the MSPA, they ask that prospective “shoppers” respond to an AOL address. Most legitimate companies use email addresses at their own domains, not AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.

MSPA is not a mystery shopping company. They are an industry association that the companies that hire shoppers belong to, but MSPA does not hire shoppers.

$300 for a simple assignment is way out of line for shopper pay.

Any time someone asks you to wire money to someone it is a scam. No matter what. Always.

Mystery shopping companies typically do not pay shoppers before the assignment is completed. In rare situations, they may provide a gift card to be used to make a purchase, but most of the time companies do not send money before the shopper has done anything.

The email comes out of nowhere. The person has not applied or authorized the “extensive background checks” the scammer claims to have run on them.

In short, do not trust unsolicited emails offering hundreds of dollars for an hour or two of work. Never wire money to anyone you do not know, for any reason. And remember that people who will steal thousands of dollars from you will lie about who they are. Do not trust that an email comes from the person or organization it says it is from.

I have reproduced the email below. If you get one like this, just delete it and go on with your life. Do not respond to them.

Dear Representative,

You have been selected for an assignment as a Mystery Shopper through extensive background checks. You will earn $300 being a mystery shopper. Your employment packet will include funds and instructions for every assignment.

It is a pleasure to inform you that you have been cleared to be one of our agents. The Mystery Evaluation Team invites you to run a survey on one prominent company in your area.

Your First Task is to evaluate a Western Union Location closest to you.

About Western Union Money Transfer Service:

Western Union offers one of the easiest ways for families and friends to send money and stay connected almost anywhere in the world. It all comes down to the relationships we’ve established over many years. We take pride in being close to our consumers. Together with our Agents, we speak our consumers’ languages and live in our consumers’ neighborhoods.

And we share our consumers’ cultures.

As a result, our Agents and employees are more like ambassadors. They are ambassadors of trust, ambassadors of responsibility and ambassadors of hope. They are the living, breathing manifestation of who we are as a company and everything we stand for:

Integrity. Partnership. Opportunity. Passion. Teamwork.

About Your First Evaluation:

Our client: Concorde International, LLC. www.concordeintl.com

The management and staff of Concorde International has reported some lapses in the services of the Western union locations in some locations around the AMERICAN CONTINENT, Canada and Europe. Their complains were based on reports which their customers forwarded anonymously and Phone calls which were also made to the head office. The Western union locations were reported for evaluation for the following reasons:

(i) Slow services
(ii) Unbalanced exchange rate
(iii) Poor services
(iv) Rudeness to customers
(v) Excess charge

ASSIGNMENT PACKET :

Before any assignment you would be with the resources needed which we would mailed to you via ups or usps courier service containing either a check/money order which you are required to cash at your bank after which you would remove your survey fee of $300 and proceed with the assignment with the remainder funds which you would be instructed to carry out. Then we would be providing you details via email with your first assignment instructions, but you follow every single information given to you as a secret shopper.

Note that your activities as a secret shopper should be kept “confidential”, no third party should be involved.

Please re-confirm your details

Full Name:
Address: (Not.P.O. Box):
City:
State:
Post code:
Age:
Valid Phone Number(s):
Alternative email address (if any):

Email the above details to our evaluations department: mspassociations@aol.com

I will await your prompt response.

Best Wishes and Regards.
James Bradson
HEAD OF RECRUITMENT

When an undercover decoy posing as a mystery shopper was not warned about the possibility of being swindled, Dr. Eagle explained how this activity was an obvious tip off. “It is pretty shocking because that is a very, very well known scam. There are some immediate red flags for that,” said Eagle. Money Service Businesses (MSBs) must be on the lookout for Internal Fraud, Deposit Fraud, Identity Theft, Kiting, Phishing, Fraud Against the Elderly, Internet Fraud, Lottery Scams, Check Cashing Scams, Mystery Shopper Schemes and others.

MSB employees must be trained to spot these red flags that could indicate criminal activity:

• A customer provides insufficient and/or suspicious information
• A customer presents different identification each time a transaction is conducted
• An individual or business customer cashes a large number of third-party checks
• An individual or business customer asks to purchase traveler’s checks or money orders in large bulk orders
• Changes in a transaction or in patterns of transactions
• A customer sends or receives frequent or large volumes of wire transfers to and from offshore accounts
• An MSB employee whose lifestyle cannot be supported by his/her salary, which may indicate receipt of tips or bribes

Although consumers would be wise to educate themselves about the warning signs of fraud, there is clearly more that can be done by the money transfer companies to recognize possible scams and alert customers before they are defrauded.

The scam? Sometime after the money has been sent off by the victim and claimed by the scammer, the check is discovered to the a forgery. The victim’s bank demands that they pay back all of the money, plus fees for the returned check and any checks the victim has now bounced because their account was debited for the amount of the bogus check.

We refer to mystery shopper scams, but in fact this is a check/wire transfer scam.

Mystery shopping is just one of many disguises used by the scammers. One version involves the scammer buying something through eBay or CraigsList, then sending a check for thousands more than the purchase price and asking the seller to wire the difference back to them. Scam.

Now the scammers are targeting lawyers. According to a story in the ABA Journal, two Hawaiian law firms were swindled out of half a million dollars with this same scam. A “client” retained them, then sent a huge overpayment and asked them to wire back the difference. Same song, new verse.

Folks, the bottom line on this is: NEVER WIRE MONEY TO SOMEONE YOU DO NOT KNOW. Ever. Even if you think you know them, even if they claim to be giving you money or a job, or buying something from you. Even if they claim they are a friend of your grandson, and he needs the money to get out of jail. (Another common variation on this scam.) Even if anything.

Once more: NEVER WIRE MONEY TO SOMEONE YOU DO NOT KNOW. It is always a scam. In every case. Always.

Here is the story about a secret shopper scam that appeared on a Wisconsin television station. According to the report, a woman signed up to be a mystery shopper and completed some price audits. She was paid $10 to $20 for each of them. Fairly common, right?

According to the news story, after doing several of these audits over the course of six to eight months, the company for which she had been working sent her a check for $1975, telling her to keep $100 or so for her fee, and to wire most of the money to someone. You know how this ends, right? Of course, the check she received was fraudulent, and she was out the money.

It is possible it happened exactly as stated in the report: A scammer actually made several small payments to a potential victim to convince her that she was working for them as a mystery shopper, so that she would not question it when they sent her a large check and told her to wire money somewhere. However, I doubt that.

Why would scammers spend so much time (and work that hard) over the course of six to eight months for $1500 or so, when there are still people lining up every day to fall for their scams without all that effort? That makes me think that the story is not exactly as it appears.

My theory? I think the victim signed up as a mystery shopper and was doing some actual mystery shopping jobs for a real company. When the check showed up, she assumed that it was from one of the companies for which she had been working.

Many scammers use the names of legitimate companies when they run their scams, and the names of many mystery shopping companies are very similar. It would be easy to confuse them if you are not paying attention.

The most important thing to remember is that NO MYSTERY SHOPPING COMPANY WILL ASK YOU TO CASH A LARGE CHECK AND WIRE MONEY TO SOMEONE. It is always a scam.

What else could this woman have done to avoid getting scammed? If something is out of the ordinary, check it out. Most mystery shopping assignments are made over the Internet. If you have been getting assignments via a website and suddenly something shows up in the mail, contact the company and ask about it. And do not use the contact information in the mailing. Go online and look up the company to find out if the legitimate company is the one that sent the mailing.

Not sure what the real company website should be? Check to see if they are members of the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. There are links to member companies there. Or check this list of legitimate mystery shopping companies.

Likewise, if you have been dealing with schedulers at a company and suddenly get an email from someone claiming to be with that company but using an email address at Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or some other service, it is probably not legitimate. Mystery shopping companies and their representatives tend to use the email addresses associated with their company websites, not free services such as Gmail.

Another out of the ordinary thing about this assignment was the pay. She was offered at least $100 for a simple shop, when she had been receiving $10 – $20. Huh? What’s up with that? Something sounds fishy.

Keep track of where you have applied and which companies you have worked with. Do not assume that when a possible assignment comes to you, it is from the company you know and trust. Many of these names sound similar: Mystery Shoppers Something, Something Secret Shoppers, Customer Service Whatever…

Do not become so excited by the possibility of making a couple of hundred dollars that you allow yourself to be scammed out of thousands. Be vigilant.