The Check Cashing Scam from Planck's Constant

We have all received an email involving the Nigerian 419 Fraud, a request from a son of a Nigerian prince who has millions in a bank account but needs someone to help him get it out of the country. If you simply pay a few thousand in document and bank fees there's a few million in it for you.

The worldwide scam has netted billions, yes billions, of dollars under every successive Nigerian government.

Now with the bad economy and people needing a job, there's another variation on that theme: become a mystery shopper and make $400 a week simply surveying companies and shopping with money the scammer sends to you.

When The Fixer at the Chicago Sun-Times received such an email they decided to turn the tables on the fraudster (with a tip of the turban Hat Tip to iOwnTheWorld.com):

Chicago Sun-Times, Scamming the scammer is always fun
Dear Readers: We’ve all gotten those scam emails offering us a share of Nigerian oil wealth if we’ll provide our bank account number, or telling us that a friend was mugged in London and needs money. Other emails promise simple work-at-home opportunities that can make us rich.
The Fixer has heard from lots of otherwise intelligent readers who were sucked into these scams. So when we got an email offering an easy job as a “mystery shopper,” we jumped at the opportunity to expose the con.

It’s a scam that most likely originates overseas but involves co-conspirators in this country who collect the money. After it was over, The Fixer talked with Chicago’s top postal inspection official and money experts to dissect how it works.

The scam begins with an email from a Mr. Fred Nickolas of “EBay Secret Shopper LLC.”

In his initial email to The Fixer, Fred says his “premier mystery shopping company” employs 500,000 secret shoppers to evaluate various businesses. He claims to be offering a “satisfying and rewarding” job that will pay $400 a week. So we apply for the job, using the Chicago Sun-Times email address of szimmermann@suntimes.com and the name “Jan Brady” (one of six siblings whose current job as a singer for The Silver Platters hasn’t been paying so well).

The very same day, Fred emails us back. His English isn’t so hot, but we’ll overlook that because we got the job!

Fred waits a few days; then emails “Jan” her first assignment and news that a check is in the mail.

Fred tells Jan that her first mystery shopping assignment is to evaluate the services of Western Union at her local Walmart. She is to deposit a $1,950 check in her own bank account, keep $400 as her pay, and then wire transfer the remaining $1,550 to a fellow mystery shopping employee in Connecticut.

Click the link above to read the exchange of emails between "Jan" and the scammer.

The way to avoid all these kinds of frauds is to remember this rule: if something sounds too good to be true, it's most likely a scam.

For example, in return for slaughtering a few Crusaders and Jews, Muslims are promised a Heaven filled with 72 succulent virgins and a perpetual erection. Muslims for 1400 years have been exchanging their mortal lives in return for this offer. This is arguably the biggest scam ever perpetrated in history. Sadly, Muslims are still buying into this scam even in the present day.