Haven't seen this scam yet...

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Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 8:50 pm

Here's a fresh one in my inbox. Anyone seen this scam before? It's pretty obvious how it works, but seems pretty clever and could fool people. Email addy is gmail so I can't get the IP, however it is a well written letter, which makes me wonder if it is a English or American lad.

Quote:

Congratulations!! you are among the selected people from the recruitment search that has been completed successfully via online schools database as a part-time online Survey staff on all MONEY GRAM and WESTERN UNION Agent Location in your neighborhood, MONEY GRAM and WESTERN UNION shop is available at all Walmart Store and you can also find the shops around your neighborhood,this assignment has been put together to be completed at any MONEY GRAM and WESTERN UNION shop/Agent around your location,the objective of these assignment will be to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the payment system called "MONEY GRAM and WESTERN UNION" which is available in your location.

MONEY GRAM and WESTERN UNION payment system was reported for evaluation because of the following reasons below:

* Slow and Poor Customer services.
* Rudeness and agents inefficiency to customers.
* High transfer charges.
* Late opening and early closing Hours.

Your survey Evaluation job will be done as below:

*You will go into a "MONEY GRAM or WESTERN UNION SHOP" as a potential customer.
*You are required to make use of their Money Transfer and Quick Collection services to make a Money transfer.
*You are required to send in a report of the time it took you to get money transferred at that location,detail from the time of your arrival at the Agent Location and the time you will be done at the shop.
* You are required to send report about their transfer fees.
* You are required to forward back to us a detailed report of the money transfer as soon as the assignment is completed at any of the Agent Location that you visited.

I want you to know that your salary in any survey assignment that you executed will be $690.00 included transportation expenses and each assignment is expected to be completed within 3 days,funds needed to complete this assignment will be mail to you by our sponsor company in the form of company's certified Cashier Check to your home address immediately your Mystery Shopper account is setup.

You will also be assigned an online tutorial staff that will guide you through your tutorial and assignment process, you will receive the Check and more information to execute this survey job via FedEx Express Mail service at your house address that you provided.

NOTE: if you are not willing to take this survey job please do not reply this email notification, I also want to inform you that we need below information from you to create your mystery Shopper profile immediately.

*Your full name:
*Your Current Contact Address (P.O.Box Not Required):
*Your contact phone number:
*Age:
*Your Current Occupation:
*Indicate the type of Instant messenger chat name you have and provide it, for online tutorial purposes.

Thank you and we look forward to working with you.
Regards,
James Karl

Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 9:30 pm

So if I'm reading this correctly you are supposed to transfer your money to whatever destination they say to send it too, and get reports on the service you got from the WU or MG office. And they will "pay" you $690.00 each time.

Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 9:39 pm

Right. Basically the scammer is posing as a legitimate company, will ask you to transfer money through WU or MG, and then "review" your experience. Of course you will never see the $690 you were promised, and the money you sent is long gone.

Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 11:14 pm

It is a Mystery Shopper scam: you can read about this at ScamWarners here.

Quote:

funds needed to complete this assignment will be mail to you by our sponsor company in the form of company's certified Cashier Check

The check, of course, will be fraudulent.

Quote:

each assignment is expected to be completed within 3 days

A victim, however, would be making the WU/MG transfer before the check is discovered to be fraudulent. When that discovery is made, the amount it covered would be cancelled from their bank account, meaning that the transfer made actually came out of their own money: ie they have sent their own money to the scammer.

The 'script' itself was unlikely to have been written by the Lad who sent it, so will not necessarily reflect his own skill in written English.

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 12:19 am

I hate to be an elitist prick, but there are many many errors in the English of that scam email. Verb tenses, number correspondence, use of possessives, etc. are almost all wrong. It's NOT business English by any means. The writing is better than that of most scamming emails, and it probably would fool a lot of people, but it's still clearly written by a lad from another country/culture/language.

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 12:23 am

^^^MikeH... after re-reading it after I posted here I thought the exact same thing. When I read it originally I didn't notice it as much, but when I "proof-read" the message later, I noticed lots of tenses that were out of place as well. I thought the same thing, definitely not a native English speaker. But like you said, definitely much better written than most scam emails we receive.

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 12:58 am

I got this.

Quote:

HELLO

Dear Friend,

Based on the information and recommendation satisfactorily gathered concerning your personal profile, I hereby wish to acquaint you with a business proposal that will be of benefit to both of us. I represent an heiress family (their father is dead since last year) which would like to invest their treasure in your country in order to invest it in various projects such as in real estate and business.

As a result of African economic and political instability, I am prompted to look for credible, reliable and trust worthy person or company whom to transfer this inheritance to his account, before his death, their father deposited the money in a Trust Bank and the amount deposited was a value of ($US12.000.000.00.)

Meanwhile, all relevant documents pertaining to this 'Precious Family Treasure' are with me and will be issued to you at your request. Kindly send to me your acceptance mail and other details will follow.

On the receipt of your response via email;[email protected] or call me on +2289763241, l will furnish you with a detailed clarification.

Appreciate if you can callas soon as possible.

Expecting to hear from you soonest.

Kind regards

Mr.Moses Awooyo

Another "not bad" type of email.

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 6:07 am

I had a "Mystery Shopper" like that. They didn't say the stores were the Onion or Grab in the 1st script. Evaluate the service. I think they were gonna send me a check.

I replied I would be a "gud mystere shoper" and I was accepted.
(Big surprise). Have seen lately some really well written scripts.
I prefer the laughable.

Willing to bet they are WAY different when off-script, 3 or 4 mails in.

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