Help Wanted: Mystery Shopper

Dec. 21, 2008

Help Wanted: Mystery Shopper!
Beware the easy ‘job offer’ that’s guaranteed to make you pay

This week the Express continues its Ripped Off series to alert consumers to pocketbook predators. If you’d like to share your own story, please write a letter to the editor or call Anne Stanton at 1-877-244-8787

This week, the Ripped-Off articles became a little too close for comfort.
After taking the expert’s advice, I began checking my debit card transactions more closely and more often. Last week, I discovered that some @%#@ thief stole my number to buy a couple of items at Himalayan Organic in Grandville. The amounts were small—just $52 and the bank immediately credited the charges back to my account—but I was told scammers usually test the water to see if the card holder is watching.
An even bigger coincidence: The topic of this week’s Ripped-Off series is “scam jobs,” which are often advertised in the newspaper. And, whaddya know, Northern Express ran two such ads last week — one for a Mystery Shopper and the other for a market researcher. The ads have since been pulled, hopefully with no damage done.
Just to see what happened, I responded to both ads using a fake name and, so far, no response. Guess I didn’t sound desperate enough (or my grammar was too good).
The problem with these fake ads is they’re not as obvious as, say, those pesky emails that promise millions from a Nigerian lottery.
There are, in fact, legitimate mystery shoppers who are hired to “spy” on employees at companies ranging from Burger King to Starbucks to Whole Foods Market, according to an August 12, 2008 Detroit News article.
A mystery shopper’s job involves visiting specific stores incognito and checking out a clerk’s courtesy, appearance, and ability to make a good espresso. A mystery shopper is paid $6 to $100 for each store visit, depending on the depth of the spying. The shopper is also reimbursed for the items bought during the visit.
The Detroit News article quoted officials from the mystery shopping firms of Shoppers’ View in Grand Rapids and Second to None, Inc., in Ann Arbor.

THE PLOT THICKENS
But if there is a mystery shopping provider in Northern Michigan, it’s a mystery to Derek Sutherin, a Traverse City detective who has investigated these scams for years.
His advice: If you see an ad for a mystery shopper—especially if it’s written in poor English—avoid it like a bad novel.
Here’s how it works: Just like a legitimate mystery shopper, you’ll be asked to visit and evaluate several local businesses.
But in the scam case, they’re advertised more as dream jobs: Excellent money, part-time, and very flexible work hours.
With the scam scheme, you’ll receive—at some point—a cashier’s check or money order for a large amount of money. The check is usually drawn on a well-known corporation such as Northwest Airlines or Wal-Mart. It makes no logical sense and might serve as a big tip-off, Sutherin said.
You’ll be told the check constitutes your weekly salary as well as money required to make purchases at the businesses you’ll be spying on, Sutherin said.
The scammer will send you evaluation forms and directions on which businesses to visit and how much to spend.
“It might say, ‘Spend $8 for a meal at Burger King, spend $25 at Sears, spend $3 at the Dollar Store, go to Western Union and send $2000’—yes, it’s that crazy, $8, $25, $3, then $2,000!—‘Go to JC Penney’s and spend $12, go to MoneyGram and send $1,000.’”

THE CATCH
The victim may think nothing is wrong, at least at first. That’s because the fraudulent check has legitimate routing and checking account numbers that were plagiarized from a valid corporate account. The bank, initially, has no reason to think it’s fraudulent.
Ten days later, the corporation, upon which the fraudulent check was drawn, will notice the $5,000 transaction, and immediately call the bank where it was deposited. The bank will have to reimburse the corporation, and then call on the mystery shopper to make good on the check, Sutherin said.
“They’ll tell them they want their money back and they’ll freeze the account until they get it,” he said. “Yes, the victim has to pay back the full amount of $5,000 and they often can’t because they are vulnerable. Often, they’ll target their victims on a job-search website such as monster.com—they’ll see someone who looks like they’d be easy to dupe. A kid with a 10th grade education who believes they’re qualified for a managerial job complete with a company car. I worked on a case where they stung a young college student, a girl. There was no way to help her.”

‘ASSISTANT WANTED’
The second scam works in a similar way, except the ad might be for a stateside assistant. The scammer explains that he needs someone inside the country to handle the company’s financial transactions to expedite deposits. They are always in a hurry, for good reason. Time is of the essence with these scams.
“The victim will receive a check for $4,000 -- $1,500 is for their salary, and they’re asked to immediately wire the remaining $2,500 back to them. Sometimes the scammer will send several money orders and ask the victim to deposit them in different banks.
“A week or so later they’ll get a notice from the bank that the check was counterfeit. The victim is left holding the bag,” said Grand Traverse County Detective Todd Heller.
“Unfortunately, some people are in such dire straits, they just don’t think clearly. They might know—in the back of their mind—that it’s a scam, but financially they’re hurting so bad, they think, ‘I’ll try it this one time. If it’s a legitimate thing, I can pay my mortgage or my kid’s tuition.’ But then they’re stuck having to pay back an enormous amount of money.”
How do you know, right upfront, what’s legitimate and what’s not?
One red flag is the scammer’s email. Corporations are typically in the domain name–rogersmith@generalmotors.com for example. Another giveaway is poor English. The clincher is being asked to deposit checks and then told to immediately wire some money.

SCAM ROUTINE
These scammers are almost never caught. Once the money is wired via Western Union, the scammer can get the money anywhere in the world simply by providing the required “code” word and identification. Fortunately, the Western Union offices in Northern Michigan are familiar with the scam routine and will often slow down the transaction or alert the victim, Sutherin said.
“After we figure out what’s going on, we alert the news media, so then they’ll put a new twist on it,” Heller said, adding that one local newspaper once refused to pull an offending ad.
“It’s a never-ending battle. The people who run these scams, they send scam email, thousands and thousands of emails—and they just need one person to fall for it.”