Mystery Shopping Scams
Avoid putting yourself at risk by learning more about mystery shopping scams. However, there are many real opportunities to mystery shop for extra income or free goods - just not often the extremely high rewards promised by scammers. For information on how to work for legitimate mystery shopping companies, please visit our New Shopper information.
Shoppers Be Aware!
Many people have had their initial exposure to mystery shopping through a scam company, giving the entire industry a bad name. This is bad both for individuals who fall for the scams as well as the entire mystery shopping industry; scams create unrealistic expectations as well as distrust. As a shopper, you must always protect yourself against unscrupulous individuals and companies.
Read more about protecting yourself from mystery shopping scams in our article, How To Avoid Being Scammed.
Did you know that the Federal Trade Commission has warned potential mystery shoppers about scams involving the industry? Read the FTC's report regarding mystery shopping (PDF).
Typical Scams
Bait and switch: A company will advertise huge and unrealistically high rewards for mystery shopping, but will turn out to be asking you to pay for information about mystery shopping. Such information is rarely as valuable as is claimed.
Money order scams: Some shoppers have reported e-mails with job offers, claiming to be from mystery shopping providers, that have asked to shop companies that sell money orders. They are asked to receive and cash a large sum money order or (hundreds or thousands of dollars) and then to return most of it, keeping the remainder. In the meantime, the cashed money order will come back as fraudulent, leaving the shopper holding the bag on both their fee and the returned cash. This is just a variation of the classic money order scam that's already prevalent.