» Mystery Shopping Scams

Mystery Shopping Scams can be avoided by all of us. The trick is to learn how to spot them in the first place. Read our 4 point guide that helps you differentiate the real opportunities from the fake ones so that you do not end up losing lots of money instead of earning it. Remember that even if the scamster innovate new schemes, the basic principles of tricking customers remain the same. If you learn to make these out, the chances of your losing money or valuable time reduce substantially.
 

1. Do Not Pay Money To Register – The easiest and quickest way to fool people is to ask them to pay money upfront, howsoever, small the amount. Be it a pyramid scheme or a shopping scams, a requirement for money to apply is a dead giveaway proving that the opportunity is not genuine. Think of it like this – If there is a genuine job opportunity why would a company expect you to pay especially if they have any use for your services.  Even if the fee is small, it ends up becoming a tidy sum for the scamster who collects it from lots of gullible people, and then, becomes untraceable.
2. Do not Believe That You Will Make Easy Money or Lots of Money – If the compensation or rewards promised are too high, it should ring a bell. Secret or undercover shopping does not pay very well, even if you take some of the perks into account. If it sounds too easy to be true, it probably is. Use common sense when evaluating any opportunity to make sure that it is not a mystery shopping scams . Like any other job going undercover as a shopper requires a lot of hard work and dedication. In fact, many people even lose money when they begin this job because they incur costs like transport which are not reimbursed.
    
3. Do not Cash Any Checks or Wire Any Of Your Money – Sending people counterfeit checks, and then, asking them to wire that money to an address is a popular scam. You are then hit with the amount of penalty that you pay the bank, the amount that you wired and of course the cost of the effort not to mention the gasoline. You can also be booked for fraud if the amount is large enough. 
4. Do not Believe Companies That Hire You without An Interview – Be suspicious of companies that hire you because you called their toll free number. Real jobs are not that easy to come by in the real world. If they are, it is probably a scam. 

Truth be told, scams prosper in areas of business where people believe the opportunities to be very lucrative. In their desperation to get hired, they stop asking the very fundamental questions that they would have asked otherwise. It is this desperation and anxiety to get on board that mystery shopping scams thrives on. Ask yourself if you would pay to become a sales attendant at a grocery store. Or if you expect any reputed company to hire you without checking your qualifications. There is no free lunch and the sooner we accept the fact, the better will be our chances of escaping trickery at the hands of scamster.
 
There are many online forums you can check that give details on mystery shopping scams . Scams are a large business today and you should periodically check out the new kinds of tricks and schemes that are happening to stay one step ahead of the bad guys. In case you have suffered, make sure you share your experiences with others so that other people can learn from your mistakes.

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Undercover shopping is a very good tool for assessing the quality of customer service but there are some cases of mysterious shopping scam which have spoiled the impression and credibility of such a wonderful service. You do not have to go very far to find information on a shopping service fraud. As the phenomenon has become more common, more and more people have started posting warnings about these scams. Most of these have been targeted at people who work as freelance shoppers people think they have stumbled across a great way to make some extra cash in their free time. As a businessperson, you should be aware of these frauds. Knowing what kind of hidden shopping scams are out there will make it easier for you to avoid the companies who practice them.

The Online Factor

When it comes to a shopping scam, the internet has proven to be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it has made it easier for people to spread the word and educate others about scams and how to avoid them. On the other hand, it has made it easier for unscrupulous people to create scams. In most cases, by the time the scam is exposed, those who are responsible for it, would have already made quite a bit of money. The best way to avoid these kinds of operations is to know how to spot them.

When it comes to a mystery shopping scam , the shopper will usually have to spend some money during the assignment, such as, make a purchase or buy a meal at a restaurant. Unfortunately, these shoppers are not reimbursed for their expenses and in some cases they are not even paid for the services offered. This is the kind of hidden shopping scam, which one should avoid. If you notice that a particular company tends to hire all their shoppers on a contractual basis, offers no payment and does not require any kind of training, it is better to avoid their services.

Cashing The Check

The most popular shopping scam to emerge in recent times is, asking the shopper to wire some money to an account in another country. Unfortunately, on the surface, this particular assignment looks perfectly legit. The shopper is sent a complete package of training material and the check itself appears to come from a trustworthy financial institution. All they have to do is cash the check, keep their fee amount and wire the rest of the money to another account. The catch is that, the check is a bad one, the poor shopper ends up being liable for the fraudulent check.

The best way for a business to avoid this kind of shopping scam is to stay away from companies that are not situated within the country. If they offer money before the actual execution of the job, this probably means they are just out to scam the shopper. Moreover, when companies demand a fee for shoppers to join their company this is a sign of shoddy hidden shopping services. Apart from that, bear in mind that a good anonymous shopping agency will always screen each and every shopper. They will also ensure that the shopper has proper experience to execute a given assignment. Any service that does not screen the prospective employee is probably just another scam.

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Everything that gets popular prompts the growth of frauds who try to capitalize on the frenzy accompanying such popularity. Special shopping is also a victim of such things and this is the cause of mystery shopping scam . Many people try to get the job of special shopper and want to make it big from day one. These greedy people fall victim to the scams which promise big money and lots of facilities and freebies. But the ground situation is different and a prospective shopper should learn it before getting duped by the big promises.

The mystery shopping scam generally promises high wages for the job. But the reality is that the fees are just enough to call them any income. Most of the easy assignments that the new entrants generally get are the lowest paying ones and the shopping too is restricted by the limitation of reimbursable amount. But easy money and big money had always been the temptations and these companies do not give them for free. So the interested shoppers pay the money which they think is a pittance compared to the promised amount. But in the end they find that the site itself has vanished and so has their money. So it must be kept in mind that all sites that are genuinely involved in special shopping do not recruit the shoppers for money but for the job. This is an easy sign to recognize whether the site you are interacting with is genuine or fraud.

Starting shopping with a reputed company is not an easy job. They just do not take in anybody simply on an application. They take a test and then evaluate the person before registering the person as a special shopper. So you do not get any assignment from the first day itself and it can take days before the company thinks that it needs your service. This makes the genuine ones look like mystery shopping scam as the shoppers think that the whole registration process is an eye wash. But what is there to worry? After all you did not pay any fees. A day will come when you will definitely get a call and this means that you will definitely earn some money even if it is very small.

Another mystery shopping scam that has hit the special shopping scene is where a shopper is asked to visit the big shops and departmental stores and do whatever a special shopper is supposed to do. After making the observations the shopper is to report back to the company that has launched the site. Till this part there is no hint of a scam, nor is their any problem till you find that you have received the check. Meanwhile the company demands a very small amount to be sent back to it at a designated account through any of the electronic transfers. It seems a small amount but when the shopper does not get anything in return and the check belongs to a non-existent account the reality of the scam comes to the surface.

The people who device any mystery shopping scam are intelligent enough to cut a more deadly deal. Beware of any website that wants your financial details like bank accounts and insists that you buy the goods and articles by using a debit card or credit card. They are probably devising ways to get hold of your bank account and keep the number in a storage bank and once they do so you might get turned into a pauper. The only word of caution is do not fall victim to promise of easy money.

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If you are thinking of joining a career of a special shopper you are welcome. It is one of the most interesting jobs that can be done in the spare time. It has the added advantage of visiting retail stores, restaurants, cinemas, amusement parks and getting paid for them. The interest that it has generated is unprecedented and so is the spurt in the mystery shopping scams involving registrations of the interested shoppers. This is no word of discouragement but warning. Anything that gains popularity sprouts clones and they are not always the good ones. So the moment you want to get registered as a special shopper look for the tell tale signs of a scam brewing.

Mystery shopping scams occur when some fraudulent companies spring up to cash in on the wave of special shopping that sweeps every household. Internet is a place where anything goes and the addresses of the companies attracting the special shoppers are often not verified. So there is no solid evidence that a company exists at a place where it claims to exist. Meanwhile the craze of an interesting career where one gets to do shopping and also get paid for it beckons almost everybody, men or women, young or old and they swarm to the sites like bees. The attractive thing is not always honey and this is what the interested people often realize when they have already parted with their money.

To stay away from the mystery shopping scams shun gullibility. This is the vice that the devils in the fraud companies cash on. They promise lucrative offers like doing special shopping in the premier restaurants of the country and shopping at the largest retail stores and the designer boutiques, or visiting the health spa of your dream. Also do not fall victim to desperation that nothing is coming your way when the others around you are flaunting their gains from the career in special shopping. It is another name for weakness and you are bound to get into the net of the con men if you cannot overcome it. Whatever you do, do not get attracted by easy money. Remember that your job is a part time job and nobody pays for any part time job that does not need the experience or knowledge of a master.

Be cynical, and do not believe what you find is being promised by the companies if they seem too easy and too alluring. Generally the companies involved in the mystery shopping scams promise easy jobs and high payments. They promise very easy shopping hours, no requirement of experience to earn high returns, lucrative deals regarding the purchases you make, and a promise of working for many large companies who are the stalwarts in the commercial world. When you find that a company is promising so much, look for the fine print and you will find that they are giving you all these for a very small fee. This they claim is a processing fee of your application, or they call it the administrative charges.

Whatever they call it, be sure that the genuine self storage companies or other businesses who are actually involved in special shopping never need the registration fees. All they want is the person who can do the shopping in the right way. It is their tool that generates the necessary resources. The government issues notification for protecting the interested people from the mystery shopping scams and publish lists of the genuine companies which you can easily access for free.

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