INDIANAPOLIS — Kevin Evans thought a Secret Shopper offer that came in the mail seemed too good to be true.
Turned out, it was.
Evans wants to share his story so others don't fall victim to the scam.
He applied online to be a Secret Shopper and received an official-looking mailing with a check for 19-hundred dollars and instructions on how to get started.
"Called my wife and told her our soon-to-come vacation might go a little farther. She laughed. I laughed. It was funny stuff, but someone could actually get scammed by this if they didn't read it completely." said Evans.
The letter said his main assignment was to go to Kroger and buy 16-hundred dollars worth of E-Bay gift cards and then report on whether the store restricted the number he could buy.
Once the cards had been purchased, he was to gently scratch off the panel of each card to reveal the code and then take a picture of each card and send it back with his report.
A red flag went up when Evans read the letter and his fears were confirmed by the Better Business Bureau.
"Well, we've seen this scam many times in a couple of different forms." said Tim Maniscalo of the bureau. "What they will do is he will give them those gift cards. They give them the numbers off the back and then immediately that money is gone and that check he received, that is a bogus check and that check would bounce."
Maniscalo says Evans did the right thing by not going along with the scam.
If you receive a similar letter, take the check to the bank to verify it isn't bogus.
And the Better Business Bureau says you won't typically receive money before the job is done.
