A Schuylkill County woman appears to be the latest victim of an oft-used scam involving a job offer and fake checks.
It’s often called the Secret Shopper Scam and its victims are many. According to State Police-Frackville, one of the latest victims is a woman from Nuremberg in North Union Township.
The woman reported to police back on Jan. 2 that she received two envelopes at her address. Each envelope had a job packet inside for what turned out to be a bogus job as a secret shopper. The envelopes each contained one check, too. Those checks were made out for a total of $2,460 each.
To pull off the scam, the mark was to take the checks to their bank and cash them. Once the checks were cashed, the victim was told to go buy Target gift cards. With the gift cards in hand, the victim was then instructed to scratch the backs of them to reveal the code. The card backs and the receipts are photographed and then sent to the scammer via email and phone.
In this case, the Schuylkill County woman followed the included instructions only to be notified by her bank that the checks she cashed intially were fakes. The bank informed the victim that she’s now responsible for paying back the $4,920 she got from those fake checks.
Police are asking for the public’s help in this case but according to the Federal Trade Commission, the scammers are rarely, if ever, caught. And the money is drained off the gift cards almost immediately. FTC warns the public that if you’re ever asked to deposit a check you get from a stranger in the mail, especially one that’s attached to a job opportunity like this Secret Shopper Scam, understand that it’s a con.
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