When I was unemployed recently, I got excited about a mystery shopping opportunity that really seemed legitimate. It was with Mystery Shoppers Inc, also known as Shoppers Guide Ltd, and they were recruiting for mystery shoppers with no fee to join. I signed up and filled out an extensive application that came from [email protected], a guy named Philip, and I submitted my application, excited to start getting assignments.
Within a week, I was notified of my first assignment and hoped it was a local assignment in Northern California. To my surprise, it was an internet shopping assignment that was for me to purchase very expensive electronics products from a company in the UK called Micro Center UK. What was strange is that all correspondence to me was coming from yahoo domain style email addresses and not a micro_center_uk domain that you would think a company like that would have. I received email from a guy named James Garret at [email protected] and he assured me this was a legitimate assignment and they would send me the money up front to be able to pay for the products. He said they are a new organization in the UK and wanted to test their customer service process in their UK facility when someone orders products from them. I was completely skeptical since I thought Mystery Shopping was going to the local stores and shopping for inexpensive products. But James kept assuring me that this assignment is real and necessary for their organization. They were going to pay me $300 for this assignment on completion.
I was sent all the instructions for the assignment and James told me I need to get a quote from their ordering dept for the total cost of the product. The quote I received was for $3450 from the following company and contact.By the way, I could not find any information on line for such a company in England so still I was very skeptical.
Micro Center
273 SCOTLAND GREEN ROAD
London
en3 7ug,
England
James indicated that a company named Prism Ventures was going to send me a check for a couple thousand dollars to be able to pay a deposit for the products, and upon receipt, I needed to send the payment to a contact they gave me at Western Union to pay for this. He asked that I check emails daily and keep in close contact with him throughout this process. I then emailed James and told him that I would not be able to send any payment for the products until I was certain the check would clear in my bank account first. After many days of no response from him, James got back to me and told me there was a death in the family and he was out of touch for awhile. I was surprised that he wanted daily contact from me and then there was this long delay in hearing back from him after telling him I would not be sending the payment right away. But I accepted his excuse and he assured me that the check would definitely be valid and to deposit the check and let him know when it clears.
So when I received the check, I went to my bank and deposited it. I then waited for several days to see if it would clear. After several days, it seemed like it was going to clear and all of a sudden, I got a return fee from my bank and to my dismay, THE CHECK DID NOT CLEAR! It was fraudulent as I had suspected and all I lost was the $7.00 for the return fee due to a fake check. Thank goodness I was skeptical of the possible scam and did not send any payment up front for the products like they wanted me to do initially.
I immediately notified James Garret as well as the Shoppers Guide Ltd of the fraudulent check and that I am shocked that after all their assurance, it turned out to be a scam. Of course, I have not heard back from any one of them since that email. I sent that email a few times now in hopes of getting an explanation from them and I still have not received a reply several days later. So at this point, I decided to alert everyone to the possible scam out there and to be very aware of these people and their email addresses and how this Mystery Shoppers Inc and Shoppers Guide Ltd and Micro Center UK turned out to be a real scam.
And of course, I'm sure I will never see the $300 that was supposed to be paid to me for the time and effort I spent on this assignment already.
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