Consumer Research Group - Anna Hassan Presented themselves as a Consumer Research Group for a Secret Shoppers Program Burlington Ontario

I received a hand written envelope addressed to myself with no return address. It was mailed from a Canadian Postal Center. Inside of the envelope was a letter from "CONSUMER RESEARCH GROUP SHOPPING BUSINESS SOLUTIONS". The envelope also contained a check for $4,920.00 from a bank called "Lotus Bank" of Novi, MI and also another page labeled as a "CUSTOMER SERVICE EVALUATION TOOL (CSET)".

The letter told me to spend the money from the check in the following manner:

Evaluation training pay + expenses: $500.00
Wal-Mart Purchase: $50.00
Gap Purchase: $40.00
Western Union Transfer: $2,720.00
Service Charge by Western Union: $140.00
Money Gram transfer: $1,420.00
Service Charge by MoneyGram: $50.00

This felt to be a scam so I called the number to see what they wanted me to do. The phone was answered by Theresa and she told me to deposit the check and then call back when it had cleared.

I asked Theresa how I was selected and she did not have a good answer for me. I then pressed for a little more information from Theresa and she told me that she was in Canada but the Headquarters were in the states. I asked for the address for Headquarters and was put on hold. She came back and said that the address is 310 Main Street in Wisconsin. When I asked forthe city I was told that all of that info was on the website. I told here I was on the website and could not find this address. I was put on hold again. When she came back on the line she told me in a nasty tone of voice to just check the website and then transferred me to another extension that went directly to voice mail.

I then Googled the name of the bank on the check and called them. I did not have to go any further than the receptionist. I asked to verify funds on a check and when she asked for the name on the check she immediatley told me that the check was bogus. She said that she had received around 150 phone calls in the last few days about these checks and that they were aggressively tring to track these people down.

Propellerman
Lincoln, Nebraska
U.S.A.