Www.shopper4u.net advertises in several job-search related sites luring people looking for an income with promises of upto $100,000 per year for being a "personal shopper". Essentially, you are supposed to be shopping for people who are too busy to do it themselves and in exchange, you get 5% of the cost of each item (including shipping and handling, etc.).
I applied for such a position in early september because I did not see any reviews of this outfit online. I was immediately contacted by someone and told the details: I would be using a credit card to order expensive items. I would be compensated by payments made to my credit card from a bank account. I checked with my credit card and they confirmed that anybody could make payments to my credit card and that it was a reasonably safe way to get paid because it is difficult to reverse or modify such payments.
So, the fun started. Over the course of 45 days, I had placed about 20 orders with online merchants for about $70,000 worth of high-end electronic stuff (mostly cameras, laptop computers, etc.). I would get paid promptly for the stuff I ordered and I was given addresses to which the stuff has to be shipped out once I received the payment. I found the payment to my credit card quite convenient since it continuously kept freeing up more credit for me to place new orders. And I never shipped the stuff out until I received the payment, so all in all, it seemed like a dream job with little to no risk and lots of profit potential (think of 5% of $70,000 in 45 days). All of the shipments were to Ukraine and Russia.
Then, 3 days back my credit card was frozen and could not be used anymore. I called up the company and they said my account was under investigation because there were about $75,000 worth of payments to my account from bank accounts that were getting complaints from the legitimate owners. That is when I got to know that the person making the payments to my credit card was stealing bank account information on the internet (probably using a network of phishing operatives) and making payments to my card using these stolen bank accounts.
Luckily for me, my credit card company realized that I was more a victim than a perpetrator. They advised me to stop working with shopper4u.net immediately. They also helped me put a fraud alert on my credit report and had me make a police report. Now, they are continuing to investigate the whole thing while I sit in limbo trying to figure out how this thing is going to end.
Please do yourself a favor and steer clear of www.shopper4u.net. And please spread the word around as much as possible using other websites and blogs that you frequent or own. And never ever fall for a phishing attack that results in your online banking information falling into the wrong hands. Choose secure passwords for your online banking sites and keep them safe. Change them frequently and monitor your transactions closely (perhaps on a daily basis so that you can quickly spot and report fraudulent activity on your bank account).
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