WITHIN A period of two weeks two Terrace citizens have been defrauded of thousands of dollars in the Mystery Shopper Scam.
The first incident involved a company misrepresenting themselves as an employee for mystery shoppers.
The scam involved money being wired via Western Union to locations in the United States and the purchase of several pay as you go cell phone cards.
The second incident involved a letter and cheques using a legitimate business name and instructions to deposit the cheques and use the funds as a mystery shopper to evaluate the services of local businesses.
It is not until several days after the cheque have been deposited that the bank informs the customer that the cheques were fraudulent and now the customer is required to pay back the funds that were withdrawn.
"In each of these cases the companies were legitimate companies and also the victim of the fraud. A simple search of the internet and/or a phone call to these companies would have revealed that these companies had no idea what was going on and were victims themselves," says Terrace RCMP Constable Angela Rabut.
She said information on the latests scams can also be had by going to http://www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca, which is the website of a federal anti-fraud information service, the Canadian Anti Fraud Centre.
"If you receive an email, phone call, or letter that seems suspicious contact the Canadian Anti Fraud Centre," Rabut said.
Contact information for the centre is contained on their website.