Today, December 8, 2013, the fraudulent PineCone Research survey email message below popped up. You should never respond to the email message with your personal information or follow the instructions in it. Every day, thousands of these email messages are sent out by scammers to trick their potential victims into stealing their personal information and/or sending money. Never send your personal information to anyone in an email message or send money to someone who contacted you via email message.
The Fraudulent PineCone Research Email Message
Dear Survey Participant,
Kindly acknowledge the receipt of this email if you totally understand this procedure and will be available to carry out the evaluation project by replying to this email.
Following the successful assessment of your application for the project evaluation, which took place a couple of minutes ago, you have been selected as a Mystery Shopper for your region of United States. We strongly believe you have what it takes to carry out the various surveys in your region and hope we'll not be disappointed.
Your First Assignment:
To carry out a Secret Survey on the nearest Western Union outlet in your location by forwarding a fixed amount of $1550 to a "Mystery Consumer" in another region who's conducting the same survey at the"Recipient" end. The recipient information will be provided in subsequent communication.
A check for $1850 has been issued and should get delivered to you via regular mail within the next 1-4 business days.
Cash the check.
Your income is $150 for the survey.
You are to deduct another $150 to cover the transfer charges (Money in Minutes) at the Western Union outlet.
Visit http://www.westernunion.com/ to locate the nearest Western Union store to your location.
How to rate the Western Union Outlet's Service:
You're to simply rate the Western Union outlet's service by simply observing and recording the parameters below:
Date survey was carried out:
Outlet store Address:
Appearance of Agent:
Time taken to complete Transaction:
Service:
Friendliness:
Efficiency:
Future improvement you would like to see:
Upon completion of the survey you're to send us an E-mail with your rating of the store/outlet under the parameters above.
Kindly acknowledge the receipt of this email if you totally understand this procedure and will be available to accept this payment.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Thanks for your interest and CONFIDENTIAL participation in our survey for western union . . . we value you, your time, privacy and opinions.
PineCone Research is a proud member of the Better Business Bureau!
Karen Scott
PineCone Research
250 East 5th St. 9th Floor,
Cincinnati, OH 45202
PineCone Research Copyright?2013PineCone Research Foundation.