North American Service Evaluators

This company claims to offer an employment opportunity as a mystery shopper. The company contacts potential shoppers by telephone. We believe the company may be retrieving the contact information for potential job seekers from internet websites where they are seeking employment.

Potential shoppers are told they will be paid by the company to evaluate customer service levels for selected businesses for the purpose of generating information necessary to rate the quality or performance levels of employees.

Shoppers are quickly assigned to perform their fist "shop" or evaluation and receive an overnight delivery containing two money orders for large amounts of money. They are instructed to cash the money orders at their bank and to retain some $150 as payment for their services and to take the remaining cash to a nearby well known department store and use the balance to purchase a money gram and remit it to another person in another state or country. The "mystery shopper" is then asked to evaluate or report on their experience with the department store clerk when purchasing the money gram.

Based on our investigation, this company is not actually offering a legitimate opportunity to work as mystery shopper but instead they are recruiting individuals to unknowingly act as "Money Mules." Money Mule scams may vary, but generally they offer you the chance to earn some easy money for a few hours work each week, usually just requiring that you have access to the Internet, a bank account, and suggest that no special knowledge is required. They then convince the victim to come and work for their fake "company". Some fraudsters even ask mules to sign official-looking contracts of employment. Once recruited, money mules will receive funds to deposit into their accounts. These funds may have been stolen by the fraudulent company from another account that has been compromised. Mules are then asked to remit a portion of these funds to a designated contact (minus a commission payment) typically using a wire transfer service. Acting as a mule is an illegal activity. When caught, money mules often have their bank accounts suspended and may lose access to their accounts and any balances.

Although the prospect of making some easy money may appear attractive, any "commission" payments will be recovered as they are the proceeds of fraud and you may become embroiled in a police investigation. Remember that you will be the easiest part of the chain to track down and supplying any information to the perpetrators may also put you at risk from identity fraud. If you see an opportunity to make some easy money and the offer seems too good to be true, then it probably is! Remember that even if you have nothing to do with the actual extraction of funds from another person's account, by allowing your account to be used to receive and transfer such funds, you will be acting illegally.