Mystery Shopping Providers Association Applauds Competition Bureau and Toronto Strategic Partnership for Efforts in Scam Investigation
DALLAS--(Business Wire)--
The Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA), the largest
professional trade association dedicated to improving service quality
using anonymous resources, applauds the recent actions by the
Competition Bureau and Toronto Strategic Partnership surrounding a
mystery shopping check scam.
In a Feb. 21 news release, the Competition Bureau in Canada
announced that it, along with law enforcement partners with the
Toronto Strategic Partnership, arrested two alleged operators of a
mystery shopping check scam.
In the mystery shopping version of the scam, consumers were asked
to cash a cashier's check and wire the money back to a specified
address, while conducting a brief evaluation of the wiring service. In
some cases, they were also asked to conduct evaluations of other
retailers. The "reward" to consumers was keeping a portion of the
original check as payment. In reality, the check bounced several days
later and the consumer was held liable for the entire amount of the
money wired to the international address - typically between $1,000
and $5,000.
Since the MSPA first learned of the scam in late 2005, it has made
contact with the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Postal Inspection
Service, the Competition Bureau and Phonebusters, all of which were
involved in the cross-border partnership that searched for the
scammers.
The MSPA also took steps to warn consumers about this scam,
including posting information on its Web site, issuing information to
the media and asking its members to alert mystery shoppers. In
addition, the MSPA worked with dozens of consumers who were victims or
intended victims of the scam and urged them to contact the appropriate
authorities.
The MSPA requires its more than 275 member companies around the
globe to follow a strict code of ethics that prohibits them from
charging mystery shoppers a fee or misleading applicants on actual
mystery shopping assignment opportunities.
"As the voice of the legitimate mystery shopping industry, the
MSPA has taken very seriously the tasks of working with officials to
combat mystery shopping-related scams and warning consumers about
them," said John Swinburn, Executive Director, MSPA. "We are committed
to maintaining the integrity of legitimate mystery shopping providers
who offer quality mystery shopping services to thousands of
businesses. In this particular case, a variant of a scam that has been
in existence for many, many years was hatched to take advantage of the
allure of mystery shopping. Even though it was not truly a mystery
shopping scam, it threatened the image of the industry, so we were
extremely anxious to put an end to it."
Several of the MSPA's members have also been victimized by the
check-cashing scam. Their company names were falsely used, making the
scam checks appear to come from a legitimate source.
Mystery shopping is a growing field servicing nearly every
consumer industry, including restaurants, retail stores, hotels and
resorts, travel and tourism, banks and financial service providers,
convenience stores, grocery stores and other consumer locations.
Legitimate mystery shopping is the practice of using educated,
experienced shoppers to anonymously evaluate the customer experience.
Businesses use the information to monitor and improve the customer
experience.
For more information about the MSPA and its stance on mystery
shopping scams, visit www.mysteryshop.org.
About the MSPA
With more than 275 member companies worldwide, the MSPA
(www.mysteryshop.org) has a diverse membership, including marketing
research and merchandising companies, private investigation firms,
training organizations and companies that specialize in providing
mystery shopping services. Its goals are to establish professional
standards and ethics for the industry, educate providers, clients and
shoppers to improve quality of service, improve the image of the
industry and promote the membership to other industry associations and
prospect clients.
Hart Associates for MSPA
Kelly Hancock, 419-893-9600
khancock@hartinc.com
Copyright Business Wire 2008
