TRS Marketing Perfomance
Complaint 211698 Details

As part of a mystery shopper program, I received a printed payroll check in the amount of $1,987.40 to be used to make purchases of electronics at a particular store(s). After performing the job(s), I went to submit my reports and pay for the items using this check, which they did not accept. In the end, I ended up looking and acting like a fool, now that I have learned this was (possibly:?) a scam.

Also of note, although many legitimate companies get it wrong as well, the spelling of my name was off. Good thing, too, or else I would have cashed it - I brought it to my bank and the manager said it looks/sounds like a scam/fraud... I've gotten bad checks before but this seemed legitimate but once my own bank, run by the Army, told me it looked like fraud, I crumpled it up (though saved it for records). I also received a prepaid gold money card and when I went to check the balance at an ATM it said over $100,000. Pretty wacky stuff... This was last summer; I thought I had found the perfect dream job (mystery shopping) and quit my day job as a result - only to find out later that it's probably a scam. Where are they getting this information? The way they spelled my name looks like a computer's software converted voice to text... This also occurs when I am dealing with legitimate companies whose phone reps have foreign dialects/accents, thus I was not particularly thrown off by that. And indeed I had signed up for mystery shopping programs - though I did spell my name correctly. Anyway... Glad my banker advised me not to cash this check. I don't know what recourse I may have, if any.