Victim Location 90247
Total money lost $20
Type of a scam Employment
First received a message through Linkedin in November 2016, from a seemingly reputable profile in related industry telling me about a part time store survey job opportunity to make extra income and include a Mr. Thomas Moore and his email address.
In mid January I send out the initial email inquiring more information and detail about this survey opportunity.
Few email correspondences, with a link to their website which without much thought appears somewhat legitimate. Then they request that I send confirmation via text to a given number which according to my caller ID service identifies as Pinehurst, Texas. Several text communications where they advise that before they can officially hire me as their ‘mystery shopper’ to evaluate the quality of products/services and would need to first perform an ‘assignment’ which a USPS parcel would be shipped to my address with instructions.
Package was received few days later than they had advised, nonetheless I get the assignment instructions and 2 checks each in the amount of $2985 from Ruth Lake Country club in Illinois. Immediately I was perplexed and felt very suspicious if this was some scam. But I fought my instincts and tried to tell myself I was too smart and clever to fall for something like that. I reviewed the instruction asking me to go to the Apple store and purchase 4 iPhone 6s, then the second assignment instructed to buy 3 iphone 7s, and ship the merchanedise, along with the remaining balance (minus $300 each assignment for my ‘salary’) in form of money order, to another ‘mystery shopper’ in Houston, TX.
In the back of the instruction was some extremely generic, inadequate ‘assessment form’ I was to fill out to include in the shipment and the Head Office would correspond with Apple on the outcome of my survey.
I texted them questioning about depositing this to my bank- they insisted the checks will clear in 1 day and insisted I go to the Apple store asap. They didn’t sound thrilled when I replied that I wouldn’t buy these merchandise until the funds become available after I deposit the checks. My bank advised me that it would take 4 business days to clear the check and told me the funds would post to my account today. However, when I checked online as of this morning the bank assessed fees for deposited item returned. That was my confirmation that these checks were fraudulent and that this was a scam.
Luckily I had not lost a lot of money, and incurred $20 in fees for depositing checks that was returned unpaid. If I had not acted on my suspisions, I could have lost nearly $6000. However, they seemingly targeted people on Linkedin, which you wouldn’t normally expect scam artists to be lurking, but they are everywhere.
I initially thought this company was the Radius Global Marketing in New York, then realized this one used address in Florida and went by the name Radius Central. This morning I spent quite a bit of time digging deep, searching for other reports of scam under this company name and Thomas Moore. And indeed on several websites there are many complaints filed. They seem to be adjusting the name a little bit and obviously still on the prowl for the unsuspecting. Please do something about this and catch these criminals.