Pickens Solutions Inc. Received money order for $900 to be a secret shopper. Money order already cashed in December! San Francisco, California
I received a letter in the mail letting me know about my first secret shopping assignment. In the letter was a $900 money order with directions to put my full name on the money order and to deposit/cash is at my bank. I was to keep $200 as my salary, use $20.00 to shop at wal-mart and get something that I needed. Then go to Western Union and send the remainder of the money to an Andrea Griffen in Miami Florida. After the visit to Wal-mart and Western Union I was to email a report back about my experience. It seemed fishy to me because it was sent in a normal envelope, the return address was for a Shawn Pickens in San Francisco, however the post mark is from Columbia, SC. then I was supposed to send the rest of the money to a different person in Florida. So there are now three different states involved in this.
I decided to call MoneyGram and see about the money order, I put the money order number in and it said that the money order had been cashed on December 5th 2011 for $47.00. Also the security feature on the front of the money order didn't work.
I won't be cashing this money order it doesn't seem like it would be a good idea. I think I'll take it to my local police station. I don't know if they can do anything but would like to have it looked into.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Secretshopper.com
Golden Valley,Minnesota,
U.S.A.
Emails were not from Secret Shopper
#3UPDATE Employee
Tue, March 20, 2012
The emails you received were not from Secret Shopper, but rather were from a scammer, using information copied from our website to make their offer seem more legitimate. We are sorry for the inconvenience you have experienced recently and are very troubled that our company name is being used in disreputable scams such as the one you described.
Flynrider
Phoenix,Arizona,
USA
Just shred it.
#3Consumer Comment
Wed, February 01, 2012
Don't waste your local police officer's time. It's simply a phony money order scam. Your local law enforcement doesn't have jurisdiction, and even if they did, they're not going to go chasing around the world to find out which scammer attempted to scam you.
All you have to know is that companies that don't personally know you are not going to send you valid money orders for hundreds of dollars. Common sense would tell you that they would be constantly ripped off if they did. The only logical conclusion you can draw is that the reason you received a $900 money order is because it is fake. You shouldn't even have to call the MoneyGram folks to verify that.
Since you received one of these, you're likely to get others (from different scammers). Just shred 'em and move on.