Question

You apply thru email for a job as a mystery shopper and you get the job. Your first assignment: deposit a $3,000 check from your new employer and use $2,500 of the funds to send money using a money transfer service to an account named by the employer; then, evaluate the service. You are told to keep the extra $500 as your fee. Little do you realize, but if you are not careful you are about to lose $2,500 to a fraud. Describe how the fraud is committed and how to prevent this from actually happening to you.

Answer 1

The fraudster is basically using forged or fake checks that if they are lucky enough will be paid by the bank. So if you deposit the check (and the fraudster is lucky) in a couple of days you will have $3,000. Then you transfer $2,500 to the fraudster's account and keep $500 as your pay. But what happens when the account owner tells the bank and the police that the check was forged, or stolen, or fake? Then you will be in trouble and will probably end up returning the entire $3,000.

The easiest way to check if this is a scam or not is to report the check to the bank and make them verify if the check is good or not.