Jeffrey Lawson and co: Virgil Smith, Justin Moore, Marvin Hill, James Parker
Complaint 152589 Details

Jeffrey Lawson which I believe is a fake name began by sending me a fake appointment letter via Career Builder appointing me as a mystery shopper in my area. He noticed I had been in the job market for long and took advantage of my frustrating situation to carefully craft the fake job.

When he saw I had fallen into the trap, he then went ahead to send me counterfeit postal money orders instructing me to make sure I cashed them only in my bank. He first began by sending one of $975 through FEDEX express mail. I was to earn $200 for each evaluation assignment I carried out by evaluating a store. For the first one however, he instructed that I deduct a commission of only $150 instead.

I least suspected these were fake because the bank readily paid the first one without complications or questioning. That made my imagination go to sleep.

In my mind, I assumed that the bank had electronic devices to determine if such checks were good money or not. That's why I did not bother to check elsewhere.

When I received the second group barely days after terminating the first assignment, I decided to deposit them in my account at the same bank assuming that the bank would within 24 hours be able to determine if these were backed by money or not. I did not know they needed more time neither did I imagine that they would position my account with the money if they were not valid. It NEVER NEVER in my country. They can't position your account with money without verifying if the check was backed by funds. They would instruct you to wait until the verification had been completed. In fact America cannot be all. Really embarrassing how they did that. I thought I was protected by this bank.

A day after I completed the second assignment, I was unable to use my debit card at a wine store where I was trying to buy some soda for less than $12 that evening.
When I checked at the bank the following morning, I was presented with a returned unpaid check while the sum of $975 had been deducted from my account which automatically went red because I had at the time only a little less than that amount in the account.

I knew I was messed up because I had executed the other assignment just a day before discovering that it had been a scam.

Jeffrey instructed me to wire the funds to the following guys with fake addresses in Georgia: Virgil Smith, Justin Moore, Marvin Hill and James Parker. I discovered from his mail however that they would all probably be from Florida but he was pretending they were other mystery shoppers in Georgia.Of course, you could cash Western Union transferred funds from anywhere in the U.S.

My account has been debited with the above sum ($3900) and I have to see my bankers to work out the repayment modality otherwise I mess up my credit. I don't have a job yet.