Some folks are getting checks for $2,400 to buy gift cards as secret shoppers. The problem? That check is fake, but this scam is very real.
TOLEDO, Ohio — Your day starts out like this: you get a check in the mail for $2,400. A company wants you to be a secret shopper; buying gifts cards and rating your experience.
“They tell you to deposit the check in the bank, and then tomorrow when the bank credits your account, take out $2,000, buy gift cards at various stores. Walmart, Kohl’s or wherever they can tell you,” Dick Eppstein, president of the Better Business Bureau of Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan, said.
After buying thousands of dollars in gift cards, the company wants you to send them the card numbers. The problem is, the check used to buy the cards is counterfeit.
“As soon as you give them the gift card numbers, they can spend those gift cards any way they want,” Eppstein said.
And you find yourself on the hook for $2,400 you never had.
Eppstein says if an opportunity sounds too good to be true, it probably is. He says legitimate secret shopper programs put people through a hiring process before giving them money.
“It’s not just ‘you’re hired and you start tomorrow,’…
