In my quest to learn more about the different home-based business scams that are out there, I came across yet another scam that lures people in by appearing to be something that it is not. This scam involves “mystery shoppers” or “secret shoppers”. It is important to note that people can and do work as secret shoppers, performing important quality-control work for the businesses that they are hired to shop at, dine at, or otherwise patronize.
The mystery shopping scam starts out just like you are applying to a legitimate mystery shopping job. You see or hear an advertisement and you contact the company that is advertising the opportunity. When you contact the company, you are told that you can make money by going to stores and buying things or dining out in restaurants. The company then sends you a packet including evaluation forms for the businesses that you will be “shopping”, a description of your assignment, and a large cashier’s check.
Upon reading your assignment, you discover that your assignment is to cash the check, pose as a customer, and wire the money to an address in Canada or another international address. This is where the scam gets you. If you follow the steps to complete the assignment, the check (which was fake) bounces after you have wired the money and you lose your own money because you have to cover the bounced check – no small feat when you consider that the check is usually between two and four thousand dollars.
Since legitimate mystery shopping work does exist, I would not want you to miss out on those opportunities because of the scam. I would like for you to know about the scam so that you will be able to know whether the mystery shopping opportunity that you have seen advertised is the real deal or not. To sniff out mystery shopping scams, look for the aforementioned check in addition to international contact information. Also, you should never pay any money to get involved with legitimate mystery shopping work, so avoid any so-called opportunity that would require you to pay for access to job listings. Search for mystery shopping positions yourself instead of responding to unsolicited emails, newspaper ads, or radio ads. Also, as you would with any other home-based business opportunity, put each mystery shopping opportunity through the rigorous “is-it-legitimate-and-is-it-right-for-me” screening process that you have put in place.