Secret Shopper Scam Stealing Your Money

Our investigative team uncovered one of the latest schemes trying to rip you off.

It starts off with a Craigslist ad for secret shoppers. Then it moves to an email asking you to confirm that you are able to carry out the job requirements.

If you move past that stage they then ask for your home address so that they can send you funds for the purchases. That's logical enough and it all sounds great. That they want your phone number, not too off enough to make you think twice.

The first check comes.. Wow! They've sent you a check for nearly two thousand dollars. Their last email said to message them when you had received and deposited the check. After you've sent the confirmation email they send you the instructions for your first assignment.

A three hundred dollar commission, excellent. Spend seventy-five dollars at Walmart, and report on how the store did. Well that's more than easy enough, you're likely doing that anyways for groceries. Twenty-five for gas, sweet that's half a tank, unless you're driving an SUV.

It's the next part that hopefully grabbed your attention. Wire the remainder to a third party, another secret shopper, via

Do not do that, never do that. Wire transfer scams are still one of the most common means of fraud. In a few days, somewhere up the line, the funds simply won't be there and everyone who spent them gets caught short. Had the "secret shopper" done their assignment, instead of getting suspicious, they would've found themselves out nearly two thousand dollars. For many, in today's economy, that would've put them well in the negative. A hole they might never recover from.

At one bank alone, they were able to trace at least nine checks to this scheme. Only the one we first were made aware of wasn't used. The other eight people, who had been sent checks, went ahead and wired the money on, without questioning it.

In this case, the company sending the checks is based out of Alabama, using a bank in Utah, a phone number from Manhattan, and asking for the money to be sent to New Jersey. Further investigation quickly showed links to an internet address out of Russia.

When we corresponded further with them, informing them that the bank had placed a hold on the check, they asked for any funds available to be wired to them.

Sometimes you need to be smart and look the gift horse in the mouth. Too often it might not even be a horse at all.