Advertisements seeking "mystery shoppers" are common in newspapers and magazines and especially on the Internet.
Acting on a report by ConsumerAffairs.com, Arkansas Attorney General Mike Beebe has issued a consumer alert to residents of his state, warning that a new twist has now combined mystery shopping with a devious scam that could cost consumers thousands of dollars.
The allure of mystery shopping is the pitch often made to consumers: "You can get paid to shop!" While there are companies that hire people to help evaluate retail stores and restaurants, the truth of mystery shopping is usually far less glamorous than depicted.
As previously reported by ConsumerAffairs.com, most mystery-shopping jobs pay little if any money, involve a lot of paperwork and are very hard to get in the first place.
In most cases, shoppers do not get to keep the merchandise they buy. Even legitimate mystery-shopping organizations may charge consumers up-front fees for training and certification, and there are scores of bogus companies that offer empty promises of securing consumers mystery-shopping jobs in exchange for money.
If that wasn't enough, Beebe says there are now scam artists who have combined mystery shopping with a cashier's-check scam. In this scam, a consumer is contacted with an offer to be a "secret shopper" and test the effectiveness of a money-wiring service. They are sent a cashier's check, told to cash it, keep a small percentage of the money as their commission, and then wire the rest to a pre-determined international destination.
The catch is that the original cashier's check is counterfeit, but does not bounce until the consumer's money has already been wired out of the country. Beebe cites a report by ConsumerAffairs.com about a Jonesboro man who lost $3,000 in one such scam, to underline his point.
"Regardless of the source, any time a cashier's check is sent to you with a request to cash it and wire some of the money to another destination, you can be assured that the offer is a scam and the check is a forgery," Beebe said.
"Con artists hope the allure of easy money will rush a consumer into falling for such a scam before they take the time to consider the offer and become suspicious."
