Wow! Thanks to ALL the folks who responded to my questions in this forum. As a result of all the info passed on to me (and my own suspicious nature), I found the email from scammers posing as Reality Based Group to be fake. They sent me an $1860.00 check via FedEx this morning with instructions on what to do as a "Performance Evaluator". It involved me cashing the check and then going to my local Wal-Mart and wiring the money (minus my $250 commission) via MoneyGram to a person in the Philippines. Luckily, I was already wary (hence the title of this thread) of this in the first place. I've dealt with similar scams on while selling large items on craigslist. I really became suspicious when the check arrived and it was issued from an auto dealer's account in New Jersey! Then, the address of the bank was missing two digits in the zip code. So I called the bank and had them verify the check. Turns out, the account was closed. Yeah, this was certainly a scam. But with your help and some keen observation, this one got thwarted. Thanks! I've forwarded the scam email to a real Reality Based Group representative in hopes of catching these jerks (or at least making them go back to that "Nigerian Prince" scam).

*P.S. What really sucks is that today is my anniversary and initially when we saw the check we had that "YAY" moment followed by an "Awwwww" moment. C'est la vie!

Glad you did not fall for that. Good idea to send it to RBG. These guys seem so difficult to catch. But a couple years ago in Calgary they did catch some of them!

You got that right! I would have been on the hook for the entire $1860.00 and screwed in a serious way. But I certainly want to know more about all this secret shopper stuff as a result.

The "$250.00" fee is normally about "$15.00" for your shop fee Hopefully many unfamiliar with average shop fees read your post and know $250 is a really, really a large sum for one average shop.

Unfortunately, another guy here did fall for it. Twice! I posted this in two different discussion threads in the hopes that someone will see it in time to NOT get taken. Poor guy is out almost $2000!