A 58-year old woman who lives in the Indian Hills subdivision fell victim to a scam over the internet this past week. The woman applied for a job online to become a mystery shopper and received approval to move forward with the position.

The victims’ first assignment was to rate Western Union. She was sent a check in the mail for $930 and told to deposit it taking out $200 for herself and mailing the rest, via a money order, to an address in Poland. She was asked to email her report of the company after she sent the money. A day or so later, the woman received five more checks, each for $930 with instructions to reserve $300 for her and to mail the rest back in the form of a money order. Despite her being asked to send money orders to Poland, the checks had a return address from Brandon, Florida.

The scam worked the first time because it takes as many as 5-days for a check to post to an account and for banking officials to determine if the check is real or a fake. In this case, all six checks were fake. An arrest is unlikely as it is suspected that the culprit behind the scam lives nearly 5,000-miles away.

Photo: Offical police report description of money orders