Consumer Insights hired me to be a mystery shopper and they sent a check for me to buy two gift cards and the check bounced after I bought the gift cards and sent them the infomation . California/ Texas
Consumer Insights sent an email to my school email saying they were recruiting students to work as mystery shoppers and they sent their website in the email. after I signed up for it, they sent me a mail with a check and instructions to what I should do, and I deposited the check, and it took one day for the funds to become available. Then I bought the gift cards as they asked me and then I sent them the gift cards and the evaluation form and two days after the check bounced.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Stacey
Texas,United States
Common scam
#2Consumer Comment
Wed, November 14, 2018
You may have heard about people who are “hired” to be mystery shoppers, and told that their first assignment is to evaluate a money transfer service, like Western Union or MoneyGram. The shopper receives a check with instructions to deposit it in a personal bank account, withdraw the amount in cash, and wire it to a third party. The check is a fake.
By law, banks must make the funds from deposited checks available within days, but uncovering a fake check can take weeks. It may seem that the check has cleared and that the money has posted to the account, but when the check turns out to be a fake, the person who deposited the check and wired the money will be responsible for paying back the bank.
It’s never a good idea to deposit a check from someone you don’t know and then wire money back.
This is from the FTC website