Victim Location 80631
Type of a scam Fake Check/Money Order
Yesterday I received via priority mail, a letter congratulating me on being selected as a secret shopper, and a cashiers check for $2350. The letter gave a phone no. and an email and said I should both email and text the individual as soon as I deposited the check in my own checking account. Then I was supposed to go to a wal mart, any wal mart and purchase 3 gift cards for $400 each. I was then supposed to go find a second wal mart and purchase 2 more $400 dollar gift cards and then the remaining $350 was mine for my efforts. Then I was to scratch the gift cards, take pictures of all, front and back, and text them, along with my report, and pin nos for the cards to a certain phone no, plus send an email with the same, and then receive another assignment. Today, I called the credit union the check was drawn from and found it was fake, and that they had been dealing with this particular scam already. So, now I guess I’ll turn it all over to local authorities, which really stinks, because I live on ssdi, and really could have used the $350, not to mention some part time employment. Ssdi just isn’t getting it. Anyway, lesson from owning and operating my own biz for a number of years–if there’s any question about a check, you can always contact the institution it’s drawn from to be sure it’s good. This makes the 4th time I’ve gotten such in the mail. The first time I actually put it in my account, but didn’t use any of the funds. It took 7 or 8 days for the check to come back, and my bank tried to charge me a short check fee, and actually accused me of the crime. Fortunately, I hadn’t used any of the funds and was able to get it all straightened out, but man oh man!! If I had spent any of it, I would have been on the hook for it, and very nearly was anyway. Hope this helps keep someone else from getting skinned by these hucksters.