I am a survivor of a confidence scheme, though my ego is bruised and my soul stirred. I have been looking for a job and it has been an extremely tough feat, and I thought I lucked out when I got “hired” as a secret shopper. The company UPS’ed a cheque for $ 950.00 and I was to deposit 150.00 into my account and wire the other 800 in cash to a person named James Cole. I was supposed to do a secret shop at a Western Union and a Wal-Mart. I figured that though 800.00 cash was a lot, it was so that I could be a believable secret survey at Western union, and that I was sending to a person because it would be suspicious to send it to a Mystery Shopper Company or whatever the business was called. So I did it, then I went to the Wal-Mart and spent 50$ and did secret shopping. And then that night I spent an hour writing reviews for both businesses. Then the guy was all “You did an absolutely good job on your survey! A cheque and another assignment is being sent to you. You are to review Western Union and Wal-Mart again.” This made me think it was kind of weird, so i decided to google secret shopping scams, and then this wave of realization came over me and I was pretty choked. And then When I went to the bank today and found out that i owe them 800.00 cash I got really really choked. Because not only do I not have a job, I now owe the bank money and helped out asian gangsters do crime so that they could drive around a maybach mercedes in surrey. I hope the person gets shot at an intersection by a mark 9 or is sitting at home and gets hit with a rocket propelled grenade. The best part is how seriously I took the review. My room mates and I nearly shit our pants laughing at what an idiot I am as I read it out loud to them. Oh also, how about the fact that I’m walking around Wal-Mart thinking I’m a god damn secret shopper, purchasing a bunch of shit with my own money that I didn’t even need. Talk about being schizophrenic. My dad is so mad he threatened to make me move home because apparently I’m not capable of self-sustaining.
Seriously, if it can happen to the most suspicious and critical person in the world (me), it can happen to anyone.
-B
