Description

I received a priority parcel from the USPS that was from a company called Seirve Construction with an address of 509 NW 18th ST in Grand Prairie Texas. In the enclosed envelope was a letter and a cashiers check for 1795.00. The letter in the envelope read at the top that it was from "Whole Foods Market Customer Service" and was an "Evaluation Assignment." The letter then went on to say that I was selected by this company to carry out a set of tasks which were cashing the check and purchasing Footlocker gift cards totaling $1300 and to keep the remaining $495 as a reward and for gas and expenses. The objective was to go to stores and evaluate the customer service of the stores upon purchasing the gift cards giving reporting information about the store like Store Name, Address, Time of VIsit and Name of Cashier. Also I was to provide whether or not the customer service agent was friendly and thanked me for my purchase as well as detailing my overall experience. After which I was also supposed to record about how long the transaction took and then "capture images of the front and back of the gift cards that I purchased with the pin# scratched off. The letter then told me that "under no circumstances should I acknowledged that I was evaluating the stores services" because it would deter from the whole program and if asked if I was a secret shopper I should say no. There was an email address and phone number for the contact on this survey and I had to contact the person to initiate the start of the process and let them know an approximate timeframe of when i would be done with the tasks. They also offered a bonus of $300 to participants that completed the purchases of the gift cards in 6-12 hours. This is a method that cleans the willing participants bank account before the check bounces and leaves them footing the bill for whatever amount they were able to get. Fortunately I was only able to purchase $750 dollars worth of the gift cards because of issues with my bank supsecting suspicious activity and only allowing $250 dollars being purchased at a local walgreens. To get the other $500 card I got I went and got cash because I was informed that I was still eligible for the bonus if I couldn't get all $1300 worth but I should just get as much as I could. I ended up sending photos of the front and back of each card I got and only one card was able to be fully redeemed. The other card was missing the full pin number so couldn't be used. I informed the contact Adam Brentwood at 828-316-1633 that I would look into getting the pin this weekend as I would also try to get the remainder of the amounts left for the other gift cards. Thankfully the last purchase I made of the $500 gift card kept gnawing at me based on some of the probing questions the customer service agent i worked with asked me about the gift card purchase based on knowing the recipient because even though I had sent the gift card over to continue to try and get the bonus I became suspicious and looked up the address of the company, and the contact phone number and found a very long list on several websites about the number being associated with the same exact scam that I fell victim too and the address was not a construction company as that company had no trace and the address was at a house for sale on Zillow. I then contacted my bank and filed a report, put the money in I was responsible for in so I wasn't overdrafted and froze my credit, and called to police.