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SALT LAKE CITY -- Investigators from the Utah Division of Consumer Protection are worried thousands of people may have received the same fraudulent letter Utah Sen. Gene Davis did over the weekend.
Sen. Davis, D-Salt Lake, knows a thing or two about identity theft -- he spearheaded some of Utah's first legislation to fight it. So when he received a $1,200 cashier's check in the mail Saturday, it immediately caught his attention.
"You think, wow, where's this cashier's check coming from," he said. "I was fascinated with the fact someone would send me $1,200 in a cashier's check."
The letter, from a group calling itself Survey Platinum, said Davis had been selected to be a mystery shopper at Walmart. It instructed Davis to deposit the check into his account with the promise that if he took part in the secret-shopper program, he could be paid as much as $350 every week.
But the first "test" involved him sending a $900 check to Western Union. Davis was instructed to keep $150 for himself as payment and take another $50 to secret shop.
...the fact that this scheme asked prospective mystery shoppers to test Western Union's money transfer system adds a new wrinkle to an age old scam.
–Francine Giani
"As soon as I looked at it, I figured something was wrong," Davis said. "You know, it didn't smell right."
He called the Utah Division of Consumer Protection, whose investigators confirmed the cashier's check was a fake. "Sen. Davis called and said, ‘I got this letter here,'" said Francine Giani with the Utah Department of Commerce.
Giani says Davis' is the first report of this particular check scam. She put an investigator on the case right away. The check had the name of a real Michigan bank, but investigators determined the letter had actually been sent from Canada.
Neither the bank nor Walmart knew anything about the scam. When an investigator tried to call the company that sent out the letter, the line went dead.
"We will never catch it," said Giani. "We let people know it's bogus and please don't participate -- that's key."
The letter also stated that 5,700 other people were being sent the same mailer. Giani says there are legitimate mystery shopper programs out there, but none would send an unsolicited check.
Story compiled with contributions from Amanda Butterfield and Marc Giauque.
