Mystery Shopper Scam BE AWARE

aodh

Last year I became aware of Mystery Shopper and Get Paid foryour Opinion website via Martin’s Money website so I signed for several. Sowhen I received an offer to sign up as a Mystery Shopper by a man by the nameof Thomas Olson on the 25th February 2013 via e-mail I was not toosurprised. Following the first e-mail I received several more within a few dayswith a job description etc.
Basically I was advised to conduct an audit of Western Unionand Asada. I received in the post on Monday 4th March, four (4)American Express Traveler’s cheques with a value of 500 Euro each and then Iwent to my local Lloydstsb bank to cash them bringing my passport with me. Idid check on the American express official website and the cheques look exactlythe same. I must admit that I was a wee bit suspicious and was fully expectingthe bank to refuse the travellers cheques. At the bank the teller informed methat she was not experienced with travellers cheques and would I return in 20 minuteswhen her senior and more experienced colleague returned from lunch, I of coursereplied yes, but as I was about to depart her colleague returned from lunch andshe conducted the transaction which took about 20 minutes.
As part of the Mystery Shopper exercise I was then to deduct£200 from the total sum, keep £100 as wages and the remaining £100 to be usedin Asada to purchase £50 of children’s items which was to be donated to a localcharity and £50 of personal shopping, the remaining balance of the original2,000 Euro was to be transferred to another myster shopper in Manilia in thePhilippines. At the conclusion of each audit, I was to e-mail back a reportimmediately to a Mr Thomas Olfson which I did later on Monday evening but mye-mails bounced back. On Tuesday morning I immediately went back to the WesternUnion office but it was too late to stop the transfer of the money to thePhilippines. Later on Tuesday morning I received a call from my local lloydstsbbank informing me that the travellers cheques were fakes and their fraud officewould be in contact with me later in the day as lloydstsb will want their moneyback, nobody has called me. This money Lloydstsb bank has taken all of themoney (2,000 Euro) out of my current account without even speaking to me.
Apart from the fact that I feel very stupid for falling forthis scam, however, I feel that Lloydstsb Bank should also shoulder part of theblame as they are the banking experts and not me and should have spotted thatthey were fake cheques Lloydstsb has confirmed back to me that they do not haveany case to answer nor have they apologised for not calling me back beforeremoving £1,423.00 from my current account. Do I have any recourse ???
I have reported this directly to Martin's Money main website last week but have not yet received a reply.
Thank you very much.
:mad:

Ravenshade

Lemme get this straight.

You were sent travellers cheques. You laundered them...where do Lloyds TSB come into it?

Uh scratch that. It's rather hard to read text that doesn't have lines between the paragraphs...

Anyway, talk with the fraud squad, explain what happened and provide evidence. They should be accommodating to a certain degree, provided they have leads to go back on. They should be able to check the Travellers cheques themselves as to whether they are legitimate or not and it seems unfair that you are being charged for their mistake.

It could be worthwhile heading to the CAB.

kevin_M

it's a classic scam I am afraid. Its been on a few sites. someone sends you a cheque for 1000-2000-5000 and you take a extra 200 for your trouble and send the rest back. with is being Western Union as well.

with you being the direct contact to the bank ie cashing on them the responsibility is with you I am afraid

whitelabel

every mystery shopping website warns of these scams, did you not see these when you registered with them ?

If you write reports as youve written the above post, im not surprised scammers thought they had an easy target.

Sorry but you may have great difficulty in getting your money back.
You must have known it sounded too good and easy to be true.
How many other high fee visits have you completed for any other company ?

Lilyann

This was on the news recently, they are targeting students mainly. The police hold individuals responsible for money laundering, otherwise, for the easy money, it'd be happening everywhere.

gb12345

aodh wrote: »

I feel that Lloydstsb Bank should also shoulder part of theblame as they are the banking experts and not me and should have spotted thatthey were fake cheques Lloydstsb has confirmed back to me that they do not haveany case to answer nor have they apologised for not calling me back beforeremoving £1,423.00 from my current account. Do I have any recourse ???

How will Lloyds counter staff know that they are fake just by looking at them? They will either be high quality fakes or will have been stolen and until presented to American Express there will be no way of verifying their authenticity.

You should consider yourself lucky that you haven't had a visit from the police to discuss fraud or money laundering.

aodh wrote: »

I have reported this directly to Martin's Money main website last week but have not yet received a reply.

aodh wrote: »

Not quite sure what response you expect to get from "Martin's Money" - he didn't tell you to accept travelers cheques from a stranger and then send money to an unknown individual in the Philipines did he?

whitelabel wrote: »

Sorry but you may have great difficulty in getting your money back.

I would replace "may have great difficulty" with "will not have a chance in hell" as this is 99.99% certain to be the case.

@OP Western Union/MoneyGram etc are designed as a means of sending money to people that you know not for use in random "business transactions". If anyone asks you to send money via one of those means then you can guarantee that you are going to end up out of pocket.

whitelabel

gb12345 wrote: »

How will Lloyds counter staff know that they are fake just by looking at them? They will either be high quality fakes or will have been stolen and until presented to American Express there will be no way of verifying their authenticity.

You should consider yourself lucky that you haven't had a visit from the police to discuss fraud or money laundering.



Not quite sure what response you expect to get from "Martin's Money" - he didn't tell you to accept travelers cheques from a stranger and then send money to an unknown individual in the Philipines did he?



I would replace "may have great difficulty" with "will not have a chance in hell" as this is 99.99% certain to be the case.

@OP Western Union/MoneyGram etc are designed as a means of sending money to people that you know not for use in random "business transactions". If anyone asks you to send money via one of those means then you can guarantee that you are going to end up out of pocket.

well I was trying to be polite but your right, actually there is 100% that they wont get it back if we are totally honest.

Ive used western union twice now, for orders from china. I was very nervous but had researched properly and thankfully the items came. It is a more accepted form of payment out there where they cant/ dont use paypal so its not totally all scams. Its also a useful way for parents to send kids on holiday abroad, money from the uk if they lose wallets etc
but random emails... yup it will be a scam

gb12345

whitelabel wrote: »

Ive used western union twice now, for orders from china. I was very nervous but had researched properly and thankfully the items came.

I would count myself very lucky if I was you - it is not something WU recommend doing and you have absolutely no comeback if something does go wrong.

dseventy

I can't believe people still fall for these scams. Sending money to Philipines via Western Union? Really?

D70

New.Beginnings

Maybe you should have waited 7-10 days before sending any money by Western Union, that way at least you would have been sure that everything was legitimate, what could they have done, you apparently had your cut of the fee, so any delay wouldn't have caused any problems.
You should certainly report this to the police, if only to cover yourself.

Better_Off_1983

As soon as you mentioned Western Union... I knew it would be a scam... I am just surprised it was the Phillipines and not Nigeria!