Shelter Direct Habitron, Inc Secret Shopper Scam New York, New York

I received a letter from Harbitron, Inc. along with a check for $1976.50 signed by Amy Ward, Director of Operations. They claim they're a recruitment specialist for a secret shopper program.  Well, they are not. Harbitron is another name for Shelter Direct, Inc.
I called and everything seemed legit.  I deposited the check.  In the letter were certain assignments. 
The first assignment was to wire $1405.00 to a Maria Botta through Western Union. The $125 fees were included in the check.
The second assigment was to take $100 and buy some merchandise from one of several stores listed. 
After the assigments you filled out the form on the back of the letter, faxed it and the reciepts to the number provided.
The remaining $346.50 was supposed to be my pay for doing these assignments.  Well thanks to my bank putting a 3 day hold on the deposit, I'm only in the hole for $300.  That was due to paying my water bill out of what was supposed to be my "pay". 
It turns out the check Harbitron aka Shelter Direct  sent wasn't good.  The bank returned it this morning. 
I'm lucky in a way, I put off going to do the so called assignments until the end of the week.  This gave the bank time to find out about the check, so no money was wired.