It’s 9:20 as I write this and I’ve already taken two calls from consumers asking about mystery shopping offers. Both were different offers but the same fake check scam. Here’s how it works. They send you a check. You are to cash the check and purchase a few items at the store that you are to “mystery shop”. You keep a portion of the check as payment for yourself and then wire the balance to the mystery shopping company. After that, you find out that the check was a fake and you’re on the hook for depositing a bad check while the scammers spend the money that you wired to them. The scam artists often use the names and logos of actual, well-established businesses and may even display BBB seals on their offers to make them seem legitimate. Don’t be fooled. If you are sent a check on any pretense and asked to cash it and wire money to someone else, it’s a scam.
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