Tag: Confero Consumer Protection Alert

Unfortunately, scam artists have targeted unsuspecting consumers under the disguise of mystery shopping companies for several years now.  Recently, there have been a couple of news stories involving a few of these scams.  Last year, the wire transfer company, MoneyGram had to pay $18 million to settle charges with the Federal Trade Commission because it was found that “MoneyGram agents helped fraudulent telemarketers and other con artists who tricked U.S. consumers into wiring more than $84 million within the United States and to Canada.”  Also, in early April of this year, a man was sentenced to six years in prison for running a $6 million job scam. 

Yesterday, Confero was alerted about several job postings on several job sites including pennlive.com, silive.com and masslive.com.  Confero has not posted any of these job postings.  The postings advertise positions as Customer Service Representatives, Administrative positions, and Call Center employees.  All the ads list the person to contact as Dave Miller.  Confero does not have any employees by this name.

Confero, Inc. does not advertise for full-time positions anywhere other than in Cary, North Carolina.  All legitimate job openings for Confero are announced on our company website on the Careers page. 

We would like to remind consumers about the fake check scams that have been attached to the mystery shopping industry for the past couple of years.

In this post, we are combining all the information and revelations from the past few months. Many consumers have received checks in the mail along with a letter on official-looking Confero letterhead. These checks are fake. The scam artists take the names of reputable companies in an attempt to fool unsuspecting consumers into cashing these fake checks. Always remember:

• Confero does not send checks to shoppers as payment to shoppers.
• Confero does not issue certified checks for shoppers to use during mystery shops.
• Confero does not shop Western Union or Moneygram.

• As the Fakecheck.org website states, “There is no legitimate reason why anyone would give you a check or money order and ask you to wire money in return.”

In recent months, the scam artists have also started to pose as Confero schedulers. The following names have been used by scammers: Melissa Cole, Timothy Reeds, Robert Preston, Michael Thomforde, James Clayton, Paula Moore, Carlos Burnett, Chris Jordan, Alexander Hopkins, Mark Dwane, Kevin Jones, Melissa Hillman, Jimmy Bruce, Michael Hislap, Ashley Coleman and Dwayne Fox. It is inevitable that the scammers will continue to change names, so please remember, any check sent to you by anyone claiming to represent Confero is a scam. None of these persons work for Confero, Inc. These are made-up names used in official looking email messages or regular postal mail.

Often times these scammers will use email addresses from public domains such as yahoo, gmail, msn or aol. Legitimate Confero staff members will only contact you via their @conferoinc.com email address.

We have been notified that current fake letters to consumers list these phone numbers: 888-228-3460, 888-239-1660 or 877-594-6794.  Please read the following blog post for information on how to report a scam if you receive a fake letter or fake check.   Do not deposit these checks!
 

The Federal Trade Commission has issued a new warning about mystery shopping scams. This particular warning is intended to caution recent college graduates about potential scammers targeting young people looking for work. Check out the FTC new release .