Watch out for mystery shopper fraud

The Olds Chamber of Commerce is warning residents to watch out for a mystery shopper scam.

In this version of the scam, people claiming to be working on behalf of insurance companies offer to send people cheques as payment for serving as mystery shoppers.

They ask for the victim's personal information in order to send the money. However, the cheque they send bounces. Meanwhile, the money the victim sends to the scammer's account is gone – unretrievable.

Insurance companies issued alerts about the fraud last week.

Olds Chamber of Commerce president Stephen Dodwell says people should be on guard, especially in these tough economic times.

“I think anybody who's phoning up anybody and promising a large cheque to deposit and then take out some money and redeposit, there should be red flags signalling straight away,” he says.

He says anyone suspecting they might be targeted by this fraud should contact police immediately.

“I think that it's a general warning to everybody – whether it's businesses or consumers – that you've just got to be a little more alert these days,” Dodwell says.

“It's that terrible thing – in times of hardship, people become a little bit more desperate and blinkers come on and they're happy to snatch at something that perhaps they wouldn't ordinarily not even go near.

“It's the old adage, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true,” he adds.

“Just be careful, because these people show no mercy. You won't get your money back.”

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