Well, just try telling Alan not to participate in surveys, online this and online that. He LIVES for this. Quite addicting isn't it??

I did NOT know that just by phoning them, we were verifying our phone number. We called the phone number on the check, not the phone number in the letter. But I gather this does not matter. SIGH!!!

I'll bet the next offer will be on it's way to our front door some time soon.

Oh, guess what happened at the bank?

I took all correspondence and the check, walked over to one of the department heads (not the teller), and explained. She said "oh, here's another scam".

I said "oh, you've seen these before?" and she said: "Are you kidding? we get this all day long. It's either a lottery winner, or some other scam, so which one is this?" and I said "Mystery Shopper" and she said: "Oh, now we have a new one, don't we?"

Then some guy walks over, looks and takes hold of the check, holds it up, looks it over and says: "Oh, it's not even on the right paper".

He then went on to explain about how the scam works, etc.

I said "you don't have to do that, I know what they expected me to do".

I then asked the manager "does anyone ever fall for this?" and she nodded sadly and said "you have no idea how many people come in and deposit various kinds of these checks, and then they use their own money and then the check bounces"

She went on to explain that she once asked a woman "Why on earth would a person (a complete stranger) send you a check for $5000"? and the woman answered "but I thought I would make some money, I believed the whole thing"

I said "oh my goodness".

They made copies of everything and then they said: "We have a special department that handles this, may we take these copies and have them investigate?" I said "absolutely".

So now it's in the hands of the special department at the bank.

The other manager said 'There are thousands of these types of scams cropping up every single day".

I had no idea.

I now no longer trust ANYTHING.

Good Lord.

Melody