In yet another variation of the phony check scams that have become so popular, this one involves sending a check to someone who has been involved in mystery shopping.

Mystery shopping, also called secret shopping is a legitimate employment opportunity if you are dealing with a reputable company. In fact, I did a little of it a couple of years ago and after a few assignments, I decided it was not for me and did not accept any more assignments. I got paid as promised, but it took a few months before I actually received my check in the mail.

As typically happens with these types of scams, the victim receives a check in the mail. In this case it is said to be payment in advance for a mystery shopping assignment and the victim is instructed to deposit the check in their bank account and then use the MoneyGram service to send a portion of the money back to the phony company that sent it and keep a portion as payment for the assignment.

This is a very clever scam because the scam artists use the act of sending money back to them appear to be part of the assignment, which is to evaluate the MoneyGram service and report back to the company.

The scam artists even provide evaluation forms for the victim to use and contact the victim after the assignment to provide information on how the victim should return the forms.

The check that the victim received is a phony and when the bank discovers that, the victim then becomes responsible for returning the money. The crooks, of course, are laughing all the way to the bank at someone else’s expense.

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