by Adam Shear
WACO - A central Texas secret shopper lost nearly $2000 after he was targeted by a money order scam and the McLennan Co. Sheriff's Office says these situations are fairly common.
Ben Greear has been a secret shopper for almost three years and a few weeks back he got his best offer ever.
A person, who identified themselves as "Erin Maloney", contacted Greear claiming they were with an agency called "New Retail Shopper." That person sent him a check for $1950 and told him he could keep $300 of that for a secret shopping job.
All "Maloney" wanted him to do was deposit the check into his bank account and then take the remaining $1650 to buy a Money Gram at Advance America in Bellmead. After he purchased that money order he was told to send it to an address in Colorado.
Once Greear received the check in the mail he waited a few days for the check to clear at his bank. In the meantime "Maloney" continued to contact him and urged him to visit Advance America.
"There's more pressure on you [because the amount of money involved] to get it done," said Greear. "[The company] will be after you more to hurry, hurry, get it done."
The check, which was from a man named "Kurt Adler", eventually deposited to Greear's account, so he took out the $1650 out of the bank and sent the Money Gram where "Maloney" told him.
After sending the Money Gram, "Maloney" instructed Greear to write a review about his experience at Advance America. Greear said this is the typical practice for a secret shopper.
However, the review he was writing this time was as useless as the check sent to him from "Adler" and it wound up bouncing.
"[Since this happened] I will be more careful. I thought I was being careful enough here," said Greear.
Greear claims he called his bank, Independent Bank in Elm Mott, prior to doing the deal to be safe and was told by someone working there that the check from "Adler" had cleared.
"The bank lead me a stray on telling me they had [the money] and they didn't have it," said Greear. "[Purchasing the Money Gram] wouldn't have happened if it wouldn't have been for that."
Greear contacted his bank again after he saw the bounced $1950 check was charged to his account. The bank held him responsible for the money because he took it out as cash to buy the Money Gram.
According to the McLennan Co. Sheriff's Office, a scam artist in this type of deal will call their own bank and say the cashed check is a fraudulent charge to their account once they receive the money order from the scam victim. This leaves people like Greear in a difficult situation because the complexity of the scams makes it difficult to trace the suspects.
"Once it's done, there's not much we can do after that," said Detective James Pack, McLennan Co. Sheriff's Office. "Our agencies and most other agencies hands are tied because most of these scam folks are in other states or other countries."
Greear has tried e-mailing and calling Maloney, but has not heard back. He hopes to eventually talk to the person who scammed him, once he or she is arrested.
"I might threaten him a little bit and I dang sure want my money back," said Greear. "If we can get the agencies working together we're going to get [the suspect]."
Detective Pack added to ignore these scams because if someone receives an offer that seems to good to be true, it likely is. People targeted by scams should contact local law enforcement.
