SCAM WARNING !!!

All current Mystery Shoppers and persons interested in becoming a professional Mystery Shopper should be advised that there is a prominent SCAM being perpetrated against innocent people across the United States. The SCAM is administered in a very innocent fashion via an e-mail invitation to become a Mystery Shopper. The request to solicit your services is made by a Human Resource Department representative or management member interested in evaluating a Western Union Branch or similar cash handling business that offers wire services.

Once you respond to the e-mail stating you are interested in performing a mystery shop for the company, they will return to you via mail a money order/cashier’s check of varying denominational amounts (many easily up to several thousands of dollars). The company performing the SCAM will then request that you deposit the money order/cashier’s check into your personal bank checking or savings account. They will also ask you to keep a portion of the money, usually approximately $300.00, to cover the cost of your pay as a Mystery Shopper. The remaining monies are requested to be wired back to them or another agent under the guise of evaluating the Western Union branch.

Once you have handled all of these financial transactions, you will learn weeks later from your bank that the money order/cashier’s check that you deposited to your account was counterfeit resulting in the bank requesting that you pay the money back to the bank for the full amount of the original money order/cashier’s check.

Another twist on industry scams is called “phishing,” defined by Wikipedia as “the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors, IT administrators or any other business type are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one.”

For the purpose of conducting the money laundering SCAM explained above, some SCAM Artists have gone to the extent of building an identical website to a legitimate operating mystery shopping company, such as QSI Specialists, in an effort to comfort persons that have received the above e-mail notification. The purpose of the website is an attempt to legitimize the predatory tactics of the request. In this SCAM these predators have been known to set up fraudulent websites as well as fraudulent call centers to receive your calls as you attempt to validate the original solicited e-mail request. Unfortunately, the ability to monitor these fraudulent websites is difficult for both law enforcement agencies and the unwitting mystery shopping company that is having their company name being victimized in this way. Therefore, it is important for the public to remain vigilant to the latest scams and not fall prey to these online predators. Please know that unequivocally no legitimate mystery shopping firm would solicit potential employees in this fashion, nor would any legitimate mystery shopping company advance you cash funds to engage you as a Mystery Shopper.

Our local law enforcement authorities are aware of this SCAM and have been notified that SCAM Artists have created “phishing” websites identical to QSI Specialists website to perpetrate this SCAM. Unfortunately, due to the nature of this SCAM it is difficult for the authority’s to catch these thieves, as websites can go up and down in one day. Therefore, at this point in time it is imperative that the public remain informed while our law enforcement agencies do their best to combat the problem.

Please remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably IS too good to be true. Again, we would like to reiterate that under no circumstances would QSI Specialists or any legitimate mystery shopping firm front large sums of money in order to complete a mystery shopping assignment. For the latest details on the Scams being perpetrated within the mystery shopping industry, please visit the Mystery Shopping Providers Association at: http://www.mysteryshop.org/news