It turns out that many of these Internet Scam-Artists may not be as smart as they've lead themselves to believe. I have in intersting story that will take several short paragraphs to tell. I hope you can follow along. It may help you out some day.
I recently received an email on the letter head of a well known corporate brand name. The email was soliciting positions as a "Secret Shopper" for this chain of associated stores. I won't name the name of the corporation in the letter head until it's legal to do so.
Anyway; I shop at some of the stores that this big corporation is associated with so I thought I'd give it a try. I clicked on the link that the email provided and filled out my contact information. A few days later I was contacted via text message.
Two things tipped me off to this being a poorly executed attempt at a scam. The first thing was that whomever was texting me had the grammar of a hood-rat. The second thing was that I got their text message at two-thirty in the morning.
If this scammer would have made an effort to appear as professional as their initial email contact and internet link appeared, I may have been none the wiser but, it was to late for them. I knew that not only was this an internet scam artist plying his craft but, he was a stupid scam artist too.
The text message he sent me was to inform me that I had been selected to participate as one of their "Secret Shoppers." The text message stated that they'd be sending me a check for $400.00 with which to shop. They said to expect a check in a couple of days.
The text message also said that they would contact me again the day they mailed the check in question so that I could be expecting it to be delivered by courier. Two days later, again at two-thirty in the morning, I get another text message. This next text message was to inform me that they had shipped the $400.00 check and that it should arrive in a couple more days.
OK; following are the funny parts of this story. (funny to me) They contacted me yet again, asking me to confirm my name and address.
By then I had done some research into this type of scam so I found the online contact information for the company who's letter head they had initially emailed me with. Also; this Idiot-Scammer was texting me using his home phone number. It was a land line number, not a cell phone number.
When they contacted me again requesting confirmation of my name and address, I replied by asking if they could send the check to my other address in Ohio; that way I'd be sure to get it. They replied, "No problem but you'll need to confirm your full name and new address."
I sent them the other address along with a made up name. The name I sent them was, C. Relations. The address I sent them in Ohio was the address of that companies' customer relations department. The scammer agreed to ship the $400.00 check to the name and address I sent them but, they texted me again asking for a full name. The text stated that they could not except the initialed name, C. Relations as a name to mail their check to. It had to be a full name.
I didn't want to use the department name (Customer Relations) because I was afraid it would tip them off and they'd know it was a sting.
In place of C. Relations, I made up the name, Cecil Relations. They fell for it. They agreed to mail their fake check directly to the company they were using as a cover for their internet scam. HA!!! I then contacted the company's customer relations department.
The customer relations guy I spoke to agreed to pass this information and the check that this internet scam artist was sending to their customer relations department, on to their company's security department. I wasn't sure if he'd really do it cause he sounded kind of patronizing when I spoke to him. He said he would so all I could do was take him at his word.
This morning I got a phone call from a gal representing the company in question. She stated that Fed-X had just delivered a check to their Customer Relations department and she wanted to know what they were supposed to do with it. I actually missed her call so she left me a phone message asking me to call her back to tell her what I wanted her to do with the check. I did my best to explain what it was all about.
Even after explaining it to the gal who phoned me she still sounded kind of clueless. I think I may have sounded like a prank-caller to her but, she agreed to forward the check and pertinent information to their corporate security department. So now I'm just waiting.
I'm waiting to see if they'll call me back with news that they've caught the person or persons who've been using their corporate letter head as cover for their internet scams. I'm really just waiting to see if they actually did forward this evidence to nail this guy or gal scammer.
In my initial conversation with one of their customer relations people I remember stating, (these calls were all recorded by them) "If there's a reward for these scammers, I call dibs on that reward." (LOL) As you might have guessed, their customer relations person said nothing in reply.
Yea; so now I'm waiting to see if this corporation actually gives a darn about their customers. It's their customers who are mainly being targeted by these scammers. These internet scammers know that the customers of this brand name associate their letter head with legitimacy. It kind of made me wonder if there had been a data breach of some sort that we weren't told about. The letter head that was initially sent to me as an email solicitation looked awfully legit. If there was a data breach, I'm sure I wasn't the only one targeted by these idiot scammers.
Two-Thirty A.M. on the same morning that the company's representative called, I got a text message again. It was the scammer. He wanted to notify me that the check he had sent me via Fed-X, had arrived. I guess he'd been tracking it on his end. He stated that once I open the envelope and had the check in hand to text him and he'd give me instructions on how to proceed with my "Shopping Assignment." It read like a poorly scripted spy drama.
I probably screwed the pooch with my reply to this scammers last text message but, I couldn't help myself. I'd become wrapped up in this cheezy internet scam texting drama. Besides, I didn't really believe that the corporation in question would ever really do anything about these idiot scammers.
In an odd way, it reminded me of what that great prophet and holy-man, John Wayne once said. "Life is hard; it's even harder when you're stupid." If these internet scam artist are really brought to justice for their crimes, whatever degree of "Hard" their lives held up to this point, there's a possibility that his life might have just gotten stupid-hard.
I still have all of the back and forth text messages this idiot scammer sent me. If knew how to do it, I would have just cut and pasted that whole conversation onto the pages of this thread. It would have saved me a lot of writing.
I'll tell you what my last reply to this internet scam artist was, tomorrow; and then I'll call this story done for now. If that Corporation contacts me at some point in the future I'll dredge up this story and post it for any and all who may be interested.
Also: a short synopsis of how this scam works. Generally, the scam artist will mail out a check stated to be of a certain sum. When the person being scammed receives the check, they find that it's in a much larger amount than was stated. The recipient of the check will then contact the scammer to inform them that the check was for more than they had originally expected.
The recipient will be instructed to go ahead and cash the check anyway and send all but the original $400.00 to a specified address or addresses. They are instructed to use the $400.00 dollars to carry out their "Secret Shopper" assignment. The check they sent out will inevitably bounce; leaving the recipient to cover the cost out of their bank account. They loose whatever the amount of the scam artist's check was; except perhaps for four-hundred-bucks worth of whatever they spent that $400.00 on.
I'm off to bed for now.
HollowPoint
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Originally Posted by waksupi
