Secret Shoppers ripoff Cashier's Check Fraud Winnipeg Nova Scotia

Beware of employment advertisements that offer a secret shopper job. A Canadian firm in Winnipeg, Manitoba has been advertising for secret shoppers who are assigned to conduct a test shopping of money wire transfer companies such as Money Gram and Western Union.

It's a scam and here is how this company victimizes job hunters who think they have a secret shopper contract.

The company tells you they'll hire you, but they want you to do a probationary job, first. It sends the victim a casher's check or sometimes postal money orders for anywhere from $900 to $2000. The secret shopper is instructed to deposit the check or the money orders in their own bank account. Then they are told to go to a Wal-Mart and to use the Money gram office there to send the money to a made-up name at an address in Canada. It all seems official. The secret shopper fills out a worksheet that rates the experience, the efficiency, the customer service at the Money gram office. Actually, they're being victimized by thieves.

The casher's check turns out to be a fake and it bounces, or the money orders turn out to be counterfeit and they also are returned to the victim's bank account.

That leaves a major hole in the bank account and the victim wired real money to Canada! Usually, that's money that the victim will never recover.
Bureau experience shows that sometimes it takes weeks to discover that a check ... even a cashier's check ... is fake, or counterfeit. Some people have lost thousands of dollars in this swindle.

The country is being flooded with counterfeit postal money orders and fake cashier's checks. Most are sent to people who are notified they've won a foreign lottery and the check is to be used to pay "insurance." Some counterfeit money orders arrive as an overpayment, far beyond what your asking price is, for stuff you're trying to sell in a classified ad. The thief tells you it's to pay the shipping charges.

All these schemes have one thing in common. They send you checks or money orders and require you to do a fast turnaround and transfer money by wire.

Be extremely wary of any situation that requires you to process someone else's check or payment through your own checking account, and then to wire money.

This was from the North Brookfield Savings bank, where the Secret Shoppers Cashiers Check came from.