The Long Con

I have been on craigslist.com a lot lately, and I recently saw a posting looking for candidates for a focus group about alcohol. Being the fan of imbibing that I am, I dropped them an email asking to take part in it. The exact details are hazy at this point—it has been a while since I first made contact. All I know is, the price was right for the few hours of work they needed.

A few days later I received this email from what I thought was the company:

Dear Applicant
We got your application for the post we advertised, kindly go through the rest of the email as it contains more information on our company and the position.
We are a dynamic organization involved in helping companies achieve market leadership and Improving connections between professional services firms and their client organization. Our company is currently conducting a survey on Western Union Outlets to help measure and improve the services they provide to customers. This is as a result of complaints from Western Union repeat customers about the service quality of most Western Union outlets.
The survey involves you visiting a Western Union Outlet in your area to patronize the services they render as a customer, then give us feedback on your overall customer experience by filling a simple questionnaire.
Each survey takes a maximum of 1hr to complete and you will be paid $250 for every survey completed, No Sales Involved and this will not inconvenience your present job.
If you are interested in participating, please send us a reply with your information in the following order
Full Name
Mailing Address
Cell Phone Number
Email address
Current occupation
Age
We'll get back to you after receiving this information to confirm your participation in the survey.
Thank you.
Your faithfully,
Michelle Baileys
QP Financial Services Inc

Sounds mildly legit, right? And if you happened to be sending out lots of emails for various little gigs here and there in order to make an extra buck or two because you are saving up for your awesome impending nuptials, then perhaps you too, in a moment of poor judgment, would send back your information like I did.

I should have been clued in when Western Union was mentioned. Who the hell uses Western Union anymore, except immigrants sending money back to their families in other countries or scammers that try to steal your money with stupid cons like this one? Ugh. So anyway…

A few days later I get this lovely email, and my inner bullshit meter FINALLY starts to kick in:

Good Morning,

This is to confirm you have been selected as 1 of our 5 Western Union Survey/Evaluation agent in your area.You will be evaluating Western Union outlets in your neighborhood and the survey date shall be communicated to you soon.
Please note that you will be required to visit one Western Union outlet within your neighborhood to patronize their service as a customer and give us feedback on your overall customer experience with them by completing a questionnaire.
We need to know we can trust you with funds that will be used in carrying out the actual survey ,hence we will need you to send us the Name and Mailing Address where you will like the funds sent .
Respond to this email ASAP to show acceptance and willingness to carry out the survey for the company
Thank you and we wait to hear from you today.
Your sincerely,
Michelle Baileys
Market Research Analyst
QP Financial Services Inc.

Funds to be used? Western Union? Something stinks like puppy breath. Plus, my sharp editor's eye notices that the email comes from a one Michelle Bailey and yet these emails are all signed by Michelle Baileys. A small discrepancy but sloppy enough to turn up the volume on my inner alarm. I am suddenly pretty sure I am in the middle of an internet scam. And I have already given these people a lot of my information. Luckily, they did not request anything too personal and I would not have shared that info anyway, but who knows what they can find on me with just a name and address. It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it. So of course I start sending emails like this one:

Michelle,

Thank you for your email. I would like to participate in the survey. However as many people are, I am a bit skeptical of moving forward without actual person to person contact. The internet can be a very fraudulent place so I am just being cautious to protect myself. Is there any way I can get a link to your organization or a phone number I can call to confirm with you personally that this is a legitimate opportunity for me? I hope you understand my desire to make sure I am not being scammed. A QP Financial Services internet search turned up a financial services and continuing education site that had nothing to do with focus groups such as this, so my guard went up a bit.

I appreciate your understanding, and look forward to hearing from you soon.

No answers. At this point I am positive that my suspicions are correct. I start sending emails like this:

Michelle,

I have become aware of your scam and if I receive anything in the mail I will forward it immediately to the FBI. I researched more about this and found others who have experienced this scam, and this is what they did as well. 

Please take me off your list. 

And this:

PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANYTHING TO ME. THANK YOU.

After that it was pretty quiet. And then the bitch has the nerve to send this to me:

Dear Survey Participant
We are sorry for the delay in correspondence with you. Funds for the survey as just being released by our sponsors and should arrive at the address you provided to us within the week.
Instructions on how to go about about conducting the survey will be sent to you on Thursday. Thank you.

I wanted to tear my hair out. I was not only annoyed at their idiocy, but also my own. How could I—ME!—someone I would consider to be very well educated and downright savvy, have gotten myself into this mess? Why did I fall for it just like all those other poor saps? I guess when you are really hoping some cool opportunity falls into your lap, you will buy into all kinds of things—until it is very obvious that they are too good to be true. I was just slower than usual at realizing the whole “too good to be true” part.

Anyway my final email basically threatened FBI contact yet again (because why the hell not?) and demanded they cease all contact with me. That was the first week of June.

It is now the end of June, and guess what I found waiting for me when I got home today? A huge envelope, sent express mail and shoddily addressed to me from one Michelle Baileys. I kid you not. 

Before even opening it, I immediately called the FBI. It was all I could think to do, and hadn't I already threatened to anyway? I had to back myself up somehow. I assume the woman who answered had to cover the phone with her hand while she laughed at my naivety, but then she stopped giggling long enough tell me to contact the Consumer Fraud department at the Attorney General’s office. I was then directed to ic3.gov to file an official complaint. That is it. That is all you can do. She made sure to stress three times that I was not to cash the check that was probably inside the envelope (really? You think?) and our conversation was over. I decided to open the envelope and get a look at the contents, and was amused to find a very obviously fake check made out to me for $2500.00. Also amusing? The fact that the check was all that was in there. No note, no instructions, no fake survey to complete for Western Union. It was like the scammers gave up and just sent the check anyway, just in case I ended up being a poor, struggling victim of a tough economy who would cash the check out of desperation even though I had made it very clear I was on to them. It was a crap shoot, but they were willing to spend the money for express mail on a whim. Hilarious. And a bit sad.

The whole thing is so ridiculous that I still can’t quite believe this happened. I figured writing about it would help me process it all, and sharing it with others will help spread the word about this particular style of scamming.

Word to the wise—even those fun sounding focus groups can end up being a stupid way to get you involved in one of those dumb scams you think only morons would buy into. You never know when you might become one of those morons yourself. Or maybe that’s just me.