Mystery shopper scam

 Hello to the group,
Is anyone still here?  I have a question.  My daughter got a letter
from Tums America to do a mystery shopping thing.  The letter included
a check for almost $3000.  In the letter is a breakdown of what it is
for and the assignment was to cash the check and then go to western
union and send the money to some guy in Spain.  What is the scam?
There has to be one because she never solicited this from
anyone...hasn't joined any mystery shopper sites, etc.
Dawn, wanting an answer for her kid.

  Dawn wrote:


Its a check on an account that they have no right to use.

 On Wed, 20 Oct 2010, Dawn wrote:


No, everyone moved away when the frugal discussion disappeared.

This isn't a frugal issue, at best it's a consumer issue, and really it's
a scam issue.

You deposit the check, thinking it's good, then withdraw money to send
to the address.  Then the check bounces, and you're stuck with the loss
of your money that you sent the person.

This is the Nigerian Scam.  It doesn't matter that it's done by mail,
it doesn't matter that no Nigerians are involved. It's the very same
scam.

   Michael

 On 10/20/2010 8:04 PM, Dawn wrote:

Just a slight variation of a common scam. You deposit the check and
think everything is OK until the bank sends the check back two weeks later.

If you want a real life education for your daughter deposit the check
and do nothing else except wait. It will cost you whatever your bank
charges for returning a bad check.

 linny4@hotmail.com says...


The cheque is bogus.

The scammers get the info for some innocent business's bank
account.  So they can print a cheque drawn on that account.  They
send that to some other victim (in this case, your daughter.)

Then, the victim (e.g. your daughter) deposits the cheque into
his/her own bank account, withdraws the money, and wires it to
the scammer.

A week or two later, the cheque bounces.  And the victim's bank
reverses the deposit.

Now, the victim is on the hook for money.

Because the scammer received the money by wire or Western Union,
and is in a foreign country, there is no way to get it back from
them.

This deal is commonly used  by 419 scammers, in addition to their
basic advance-fee requests.
 

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