The MS Applications Team Mystery-Shop Survey Assignment Scam
The "The MS Applications Team" unsolicited email message below, which claims the recipients can earn extra money by becoming an online mystery shopper or shop-evaluator, is just one of the many phishing email messages sent by cybercriminals or online scammers to trick their potential victims into sending them their personal information. Therefore, recipients of unsolicited email messages like the one below, which ask for personal information, are asked to delete them and not follow the instructions in them.
"The MS Applications Team Mystery-Shop Survey Assignment" Scam
Mystery-Shoppings
tschankast@bluewin.ch
Tue 12/10/2019 5:03 AM
# Hello Candidate,
We have a great job paid surveys online programs in your location and we will gift you extra paid $500 for each assignment. These jobs offer good pay and benefits and no need previous experience, you just be asked to visiting a shop, business location, department store, and then collecting or analyzing primary data.
Provide the following information below to continue signup, and you will have access to training materials from us.
:--: NAME(FIRST/LAST) ;
:--: ADDRESS ;
:--: CITY STATE ZIP ;
:--: CURRENT JOB ;
:--: GENDER / A G E ;
:--: PHONE-NUMBER ;
Thank You for Your participation and being here with Us.
Kind regards,
The MS applications team
(C) 2019 SR & I. All rights reserved
Scammers steal personal information from potential victims using bogus emails like the one above. Once they are in possession of their potential victims' personal information, the scammers will contact them and attempt to scam them or sell their information to other scammers.
Victims of these scams usually blame their banks, utility companies, ISPs or even the government, claiming they sold their information to the highest bidder, when in fact they were the ones who unknowingly gave the scammers their information when they fell for their phishing scams.
This is why online users are asked to be careful of messages which ask for personal information, especially the ones that promise quick money with little or no work. Scammers use the promise of quick money and get rich schemes to help lure potential victims into their traps.
Many of the mystery shopping scams that we have come across usually send potential victims fraudulent checks (cheque) and ask them to deposit them. The scammers will then ask the potential victims to take their share of the money from the fraudulent checks and send the balance to them. But, the checks will bounce and the potential victims will be responsible for paying the cost for processing the checks and paying back the money they have sent to the scammers; they may even get arrested.
Persons who have received the same checks are asked not to deposit them and report them to the police, and those who have already done so are asked to contact their banks immediately and let them know that they may have been a victim of the online mystery shopper scam.
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Note: Some of the information in samples on this website may have been impersonated or spoofed.