Hello Fellow MSers
I hope all are doing well, and that none of you have fallen into the trap of any of these scammers targeting mystery shoppers. There is no easy way to find out who is a scammer and who is a legitimate company when you receive an email, and certainly the MSPA does not make it easy to find who are the legitimate member companies, I wounder why that is, but with a bit of do-diligence you can save yourself a lot of grief. First don't jump from joy about you getting the assignment. Calm down, then simply use a search to gather information about the entity that is sending you the assignment. If there is any payment issues, you paying them to get the assignment, that is a No No from the get go. If it has an email that does not have anything to do with company for example the company name is Best Secret Shops, and their web site is www.bestsecrtetshops.com.ng and their email is @hotmail that is a sign of trouble. Professional people should have company issued emails ending with @company.com and notice the .ng that is the domain for Nigeria no offense but Nigeria has been a hotbed for scams and that does not excuse other countries at all, in fact Africans are well versed in the ways of the Europeans, specially London, so you may find a London based address. Speaking of addresses, use Google maps or Google Earth and look up the address given of the home office.
So you see that you need to be careful and not simply think that anyone sending you an assignment has your best interest at heart. I only wished MSPA would list their company members so that a simple search will do all that for us.
Be safe and happy holidays to all.
Wassim