Complaint Review: BFC Produce Inc.

I got a letter that said I had been selected to be a mystery shopper and the huge check included was to pay my first week's wages, plus money for the first two assignments. They wanted me to deposit the check and then draw the money out for the assignments. Fortunately I found out this was a scam before I did it.

The letter gives no details of the assignments; the person has to go to their website to "generate" the assignments. Although I did not generate the assignment to make certain, I believe that the assignment would have been to "evaluate" a wire service by wiring a certain amount of money somewhere, most likely overseas, as that is the pattern with these scams. Then when the check bounces, the person is liable for the huge amount.

They did their best to make it look legit by stressing how important it was to verify the completion of assignments by faxing receipts to a "coordinator" and turning in evaluation forms immediately to avoid "disqualification", otherwise shoppers supposedly wouldn't get paid and would receive no more job assignments. They made it seem safe by stating they did NOT require nor would they ask for any personal information.

According to the Mystery Shopping Providers Association, real mystery shopping companies will never send a check in advance. Also, because it is a real job, there is a real application process; they don't just randomly choose people who have not applied to be mystery shoppers.

I'm also filing a Mail Fraud complaint with the U.S. Post Office and Fraud.org.