Confero was recently made aware of a new scam in the mystery shopping industry. Over the last few days, scammers posing as employees of the Mystery Shopping Providers Association have been contacting unsuspecting consumers with fake offers to become mystery shoppers.

Here is an email sent out by James Bradson who lists his job title as Head of Recruitment for the MSPA. This job does not exist.

Hello There!,

You have been selected for an assignment as a Mystery Shopper. You will earn $300 being a mystery shopper. Your employment packet will include funds for the shopping, a training assignment which will be sent to you after you receive payment for the assignment. A Pay check would be sent to you for the assignment in the form of a Check or Money Order. The pay check would be in a certain amount which you would be required to cash a your bank, deduct your salary, and have the rest used for the evaluation at the store that would be given to you to evaluate. Get back with the following details if interested.

Full Name:
Phone Number:
Nationality:
Alternative Email Address:

Email the above details to: mspassociation@aol.com

As a mystery shopper you work and shop together for pleasure and the pay is $300 weekly on Part time basis, You only work 2-3hours twice in a week. Do get back to the recruiting department of Mystery Shopper Provider Association (MSPA).

THANK YOU
James Bradson
HEAD OF RECRUITMENT

Here are a few things about this email that should make consumers suspicious.

• The Mystery Shopping Providers Association not contract or hire mystery shoppers.
• Legitimate mystery shopping companies never pay mystery shoppers before a shop assignment is completed.
• Legitimate mystery shopping companies will never ask mystery shoppers to cash or deposit a paper check or money order.

• The email address this scammer provides is an aol.com address. Legitimate mystery shopping companies will only email you from email address from their own domain. For example john@conferoinc.com. If you receive any emails from gmail, yahoo, msn, hotmail or other public email services, be VERY suspicious.

Don’t forget! Always investigate these types of emails. If it sounds too good to be true it is. Don’t be fooled into giving these scammers any of your personal information.

If you are interested in legitimate mystery shopping opportunities, we urge you to explore our website and that of the MSPA.

For more information about this particular scam, see this press release the MSPA website. For more information about ongoing scams in the mystery shopping industry, visit our Consumer Alerts section on our website.