Career Employment Center Mystery Shopping Scam Buffalo New York

Yesterday I received a letter that was postmarked from Canada in a blank envelope with no preprinted return address. It had my name on a generic label. Inside was an offer to Mystery Shop and a check for an amount of $4880 from the Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff Co. drawn on the M & T Bank. The instructions were to call the number 514-568-9481 and get instructions to where shopping will take place. I was to buy $50 worth of goods and fill out a questionairre. Also I was to Western Union or Money Gram the amount of $4330 to a Pat Ebert at the fax# 888-237-1878 and the address of the receiving person was 1711 North Freeway Houston Tx (no zip). Western Union/Money Gram always ask for a zip code. THen I was to fax the receipt to the same number showing I did this along with the survey. This letter was signed by a Barbara Jon-Martins. THe letter also included an offer of a permanent job doing this for $400-500 per week. Included in this check was a $300 payment. I did some online checking and found out that this fax number is already noted as a scam number and also that other similar mystery shopping offers such as this are going around and they are fraudulent. I tried calling the phone number and there was no answer or answering machine. I looked it up on google and it is a cell number not a company number. I have recently signed up for some mystery shopping work online, but I know the names of the company and their website, etc. and I have done some mystery shops in the past. They don't send big checks to do stuff. All of them involve small purchases and laying out a few bucks of your own money, and then being re-imbursed upon completion of a survey and verification the mystery shop took place. This is definitely a scam and beware.

Linda
Boyertown, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.