HELP! I think I have been taken advantage of to the tune of $4,000. and I don't know what to do! I signed up, months ago to be a mystery shopper and never did anything else about it. Forgot about it, actually. On Sunday I got a letter in the mail and a check for $3,890.00. I was told that I had been chosen to be a mystery shopper and I was to evaluate customer service. I was to deposit the check, wait for it to clear in 2 days, withdraw the funds in cash and send them Western Union to a person in Houston, Texas. The teller at the bank released the funds to me, so I thought the money had cleared. I happly wired the money off,paid the transfer fee with the extra money they sent me, filled out my evaluation and went my merry way. They also had me go to Wal-Mart and purchase $100.00 worth of merchandise and send them an evaluation on how friendly and helpful the sales representative was...which I did.

I got on line this morning to pay my bills and found my account was over $2,000.00 over drawn. I thought there was a mistake, but I called the bank and they said there was a hold on the check because there was insufficent funds. I asked why the teller gave me the money! Who, oh why! Forwhat ever reason, he did and now the bank says I am liable for all of it. What can I do? Who should I call? What recourse do I have? Please help me! Jackie

Yes, you fell for the scam. The check bounced and you now owe your bank the money. Report the incident to the police and go talk with your bank. Be proactive, see what kind of arrangement you can make to get the debt paid off without having it affect your credit rating. At this point all you can do is damage control because you were conned and the likelihood of ever catching the con artists is thinner than a baby's hair.

Jackie- I'm so sorry you got scammed by these jerks. Here's some resources you might look into (courtesy of www.msfreedom.org):
National Consumers League/Alliance for Consumer Fraud Awareness: www.fakechecks.org
Internet Crime Complaint Center:
www.ic3.gov (if the offer is received by email or you are directed to a website)
Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Postal Service:
www.uspsoig.gov (if the offer is received by mail)
Federal Trade Commission:
www.ftc.gov
Federal Bureau of Investigation:
www.fbi.gov

Federal Trade Commission bulletin: [www.ftc.gov]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/2008 07:43AM by JoanG.

I got one of those checks in the mail from a company I had not signed up to shop for. They gave me the same story - except I was to wire the money to Canada, but the check came from the United States. It seemed too good to be true...

I did nothing with the check...and I never heard from the company. Seems they did not bother to contact me as to why I did not cash the check and complete the shop.

I am sorry you went for their scam.

REMEMBER - If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!!!

I wonder what the scammers gain from the sending of the check. They make no money on the hoax, whereas the ones who ask you for payment make some profit.

They are going to get just enough suckers to deposit the check and wire the money that they will make money. Their 'expense' in all this is printing up the paperwork, the faked check and mailing the package. How many folks sending them $3800 by wire would it take to cover their expenses? And certainly there are bunches of folks who fall for the scam because they want so much for it to be real.

Forgot about the wire part. Thanx.