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What would happen if I took all the money from mystery shopping?

I got an email offering a mystery Shopping job. I didn't know it was real but I replied anyway. Today I checked the mail && a check of $970 was sent to me telling me to do a job && keep $200 of it. The rest needed to be sent off to western union. It was in money order form from the post office. What would happen if I just kept the whole $970?? The information I gave them when I emailed them back was my name, age, race, address, && phone number.

Asked By: Heavenly_sent - 1/6/2011
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
100?cam.

There is no job.

The check is fake and will bounce, the only real life job here is you paying back the back for the bounced check fees and any money you withdrawal.

There is only a scammer trying to steal your hard-earned money.

Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.

Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell you email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.

You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.

Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.

As you know, whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.

6 "Rules to follow" to avoid most fake jobs:
1) Job asks you to use your personal bank account and/or open a new one.
2) Job asks you to print/mail/cash a check or money order.
3) Job asks you to use Western Union or moneygram in any capacity.
4) Job asks you to accept packages and re-ship them on to anyone.
5) Job asks you to pay visas, travel fees via Western Union or moneygram.
6) Job asks you to sign up for a credit reporting or identity verification site.

Avoiding all jobs that mention any of the above listed 'red flags' and you will miss nearly all fake jobs. Only scammers ask you to do any of the above. No. Exceptions. Ever. For any reason.
Answered By: Buffy Staffordshire - 1/6/2011
Additional Answers ()
The check will bounce no matter what you do. It is a scam designed to get you to pay them $770 via Western Union. The check is worthless.
Answered By: Ned F - 1/6/2011
You can't keep the money as there is no money. If you try to cash that check, your bank will call you 3 weeks from now saying the money order was counterfeit and you owe them $970 + $45 NSF fees. You will also be investigated for bank fraud which is a felony offense and could be arrested. Your bank account will also be closed and you will be put into Chex System and prevented from opening a new bank account or credit card account for 5 years.

DO NOT deposit it for any reason.

Mystery shopping NEVER sends you money upfront. EVER. I've had mystery shopping experience since 1996 and you ALWAYS spend your own money out of pocket no matter what the assignment is and don't get reimbursed until 30 days AFTER you submit your evaluation form and receipts

If you want to stop them from threatening you (which is the next step if you don't wire the money), write back to say that you tried to cash the money order and your bank confiscated it saying it was counterfeit and turned it over to the Secret Service for investigation. And that because of it you cannot accept work with them and any future checks they send you will also be turned over to the police

But you are now on a Mugu list since they have your details. They will continue to try and target you with various email,mail and phone scams - fake prize wins, fake inheritance, fake job offers, fake computer viruses, phishing scams, etc. so do not accept packages from anyone you don't know, throw out any unsolicited checks you receive, and do not open ANY emails from people you don't know

Since it's a post office money order, take it with the original envelope and copies of any emails you received printed with full headers and bring them to your local post office and ask them to turn into the Postal Inspector. The scammers are committing all sorts of federal offenses
Answered By: Kittysue - 1/6/2011
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