I’m seriously considering becoming a secret shopper. But I’m strongly ambivalent about it.
I got a big envelope talking about the profession of Secret Shopping from an outfit called Mystery Shoppers USA. I looked up Mystery Shoppers USA in the Better Business Bureau web site and found out that the BBB had given them an F rating. The absolute worst, meaning that their advertising is full of more baloney than an Oscar Mayer warehouse.
Okay, this can still be done, just not with that particular company. So, I decided to find out who else is out there to offer me secret shopper work. I’ll either do this, or perfect the kind of skill set that private investigators need.
You see, I almost had a bad experience with a secret shopping scam. One day I took a phone call from somebody purporting to be from a secret shopper outfit. They mailed me a check for some odd amount just this side of $1,500 and told me that my assignment was to deposit it to my bank go to the nearest Wal*Mart Western Union desk and wire the money to a third party inside of two days of receipt.
Well, the speed with which they wanted me to do that raised some serious red flags with me, so I did some research on the company. I found out that it was a scam. A perfect, verbatim copy of the assignment letter could be found there, along with a description of the fake check that described the amount down to the penny. Needless to say, I did nothing and let that bogus check rot on my desk for a while. To this day, I never felt better about getting fired from a job.
I got my first email from freemysteryshopperlist.com. They gleefully tried to get me into the four secret shopping outfits listed below. Not wanting to be smarting from any more scam attempts, I checked them against the Better Business Bureau and Ripoff Report.
| Company | BBB rating | Ripoff Report |
|---|---|---|
| Cotterweb Enterprises | Unsatisfactory | Unknown |
| Fusion Cash | No rating | Reported |
| PaidMarketingPanel | No rating | reported |
| ShadowShopper | No rating | reported |
I’m not all that sure how much stock I should put in Ripoff Report, to be truthful. The sensationalist, National Enquirer way in which the reports of scams are written places ROR on the edge of credibility. A report in Wikipedia tells me that not very many companies are happy with founder Ed Magedson and his site. Some have even accused Magedson of extortion.
One thing’s for sure, I’m assured of a daunting load of homework just to stay away from the people who want to get into my nearly empty pockets. Perhaps I should hire myself out do to this homework for other people. Think so?
Never, never, never deposit a check that asks you to take some money out for yourself and send the rest back to them. it is ALWAYS a scam. i got one of these recently, and the check looked sooooo real, but I knew I wasn’t expecting a check (this one was over $4000), and so i checked them out at Ripofff Report. Total scam. I also considered secret shopping, but at Ripoff reprot I saw that these are mostly scams, and because Ive used ripoff report many times, I trust that the information is good. Of course there are some idiots who post boguss stuff, but you have to look at the whole picture, not just one or two reports. I think its a good service and easier to find what I want than BBB or other sites. good call on not cashing that check!!!
By: Sally on June 2, 2008
at 6:59 pm
And I, in turn, applaud your good sense.
By: angelbearoh on June 3, 2008
at 2:06 am