I fell victim of a scam from what it appertley a "ghost" company saying they are "Ameriprise Financial" . I received a letter late November with a check for $3, 540.00. The invitational letter mentions it's for "part time Job for Undercover servey" and it gives instructions on what to do and the telephone number of your contact person. The "duties" is, one, to wire money through a Western Union and rate thier costomer service and the other is to rate some department store, pharmacy or gas station. I called the number and the main greeting dose in indeed say it's "Ameriprise Financial" and my contact also answered her extention. In talking to her she sounds very profecional and knowlageable in her field . She answered all my questions and conserns. The ironic thing is that I asked if this was some kind of scam. After giving it a few days of thought I decided to proceed with the letter. I thought to my self with these couple of hundreds of dollars I can have Chritmas this year (since the past year we did nothave one) and being on disability for the next 8 weeks I decided to give it a try. On December 4th I deposited the check and did not withdrawl the money untill December 9th. On this day is when I did all of "my under cover duties". After I did the wire of money I called again to same number but this time a male answered my contacts extention and said told he was the boss and that "Sandra (my contact)" was out of the office. Before I did the withdrawl of money I left a few messages for "Sandra Taylor" that same day. For the following days I checked my bank account and everthing was fine and I also used my ATM to make some percheses. On December 15th I was trying to use my ATM at the DMV and was declied for insufficent funds. Right away I cheched my bank account and saw the check that I had deposited form this company had bounced. I plan on cantacting my bank and local police with this matter. As soon as became aware of this situation I left several messages to this company and wrote then an email (
[email protected]). Today, December 16th not being able to sleep due to this situation I'm scrambeling through the Internet and finally found somthing due to this "scam". In the web page for the real Ameripise Financial there is a section on icon on "scam" and seeing the same letters I received I did confirm that indeed this all a GREAT scam.