SmartRetailForce.org Gary Hooper,MICHAEL P DRAXLER Secret Shopper SCAM Huntsville Alabama

I'm not sure how I was initially approached, possible an email inviting me to be a secret shopper.  I received 3 emails on 6/23/14 telling me I was selected and that my first job was on it's way via Fed Ex.

Then on 6/24/14 I received 3 more emails trying to confirm that I had received the previous emails and Fed Ex Shipment.  I did receive a Fed Ex delivery, but since I wasn't home it was not left.

Today, 6/25/14, I received the Fed Ex envelope with a Postal Money Order for $970.00 and a letter instructing me to cash the check, keep 10% for me and then buy MoneyPack PrePaid Cards with the balance.

I was supposed to document the bank experience of cashing the money order as part of the secret shopping assignment as well.  However, I went to MY bank.  And after asking about cashing this check I was informed it would go against my personal account if this turned out to be a fraudulent money order.  I was not willing to take that chance.

I took the money order to the post office thinking they should be able to look up the serial number and confirm whether this was legitimate or not...sure enough, it was NOT.  The post office said there were a couple obvious counterfit flaws...1) the hologram should be visible when held up to the light and it was not and the shiney silver bar was not as wide as it should be.  The post office kept it and will do their own fraud research.

This company has a website and it all looks very legitimate...I also did a Google search to see if I could find out anything else about this company and found lot's of reviews, both good and bad about working for them, which are obviously all phoney as well.

BEWARE!  I saw another post on here about receiving a money order for $970 from a different company and they were asking for it to be used differently than my experience so these peopel will stop at nothing and just keep trying to change things up a bit.

I have to say one of the initial red flags for me was poor grammar.  If this company has been doing this for so long you'd expect them to have their "form letter" more polished.