Century Assurance Company Secret Shopper Scam New York, New York

On 2/10/2012, a letter and check for the amount of $1,989.60 arrived in the mail for a secret shopper evaluation involving using Wal Mart, Costco, Best Buy, Home Depot, K Mart, Rite Aid, Kroger, Sears, or Office Depot and Western Union. (Note that the letter was dated 2/9/2012, posted from PO Box 4056, Station A, Toronto, ON, Canada,  and had all the above mentioned brand logos at the top of the letter). I've read about this type of scam in which you cash the check, follow their instructions to spend $50 out of the amount at one of the stores, wire $1,580 to a branch office in London, England, then keep the remaining $359.60 for yourself. It sounds great except it that the check doesn't clear and you are on the hook for the amount deposited with your bank...meanwhile, $1,580 has been fired off to who knows who abroad (someone named "Jackson", in this case).

 Interestingly, there are some names given on the letter along with the phone number and is signed my someone who claims to be Director of Operations. I've seen such letters from one other company that didn't have any contact names. It'd be interesting to know how happy the above corporations would be to see their logo affiliated with this sort of thing.  I'm not sure how many people are ripped off by this kind of scam, but if it's one, it's one too many.