On Oct 28, 2010, I submitted an application for a job as a "secret shopper" with WWW.INTERNETSECRETSHOPPER.COM. In the next 24hrs I would learn that I didnot do enough investigating into this site for bad business practices, scams, etc.. On the very same day I received a response by email from a guy named Jim Thomas who identifies himself as an administrator for this site. Jim welcomed me into this network and stated that either he or someone named Jodi would be contacting me (via email) within 24hrs with my 1st assgmnt. I was excited since I had never applied for such a job before and was anxious to get started.
I received the 2nd email from Jim the following day at 3:32pm Oct 29th welcoming me aboard with an attachment on the "Guidelines on Getting Started". After reviewing this material I felt I was going to be great at this job. The only downside I felt was the strict provisions mentioned about how to submit the forms once I'd done the work assigned. The guidelines are very clear on how important it is to submit your completed assignments in order to get paid the $25 promised. It states that any errors in this process would lead to no pay whatsoever.
At 4:01pm on Oct 30th, I received my 3rd email from Jim with the attachment by way of an excel spreadsheet listing "21 jobs" I was to complete on my very FIRST assignment. Again, anxious as I was to get started I didn't think to much about it and began right away with the 1st assgnmnt on the list (Geico Insurance) . What began to get my attention was when I came to the 2nd assgnment. I immediately paused to take a closer look at the other 19 projects and noticed a pattern. ALL 21 ASSIGNMENTS HAD ME SIGNING UP FOR SOMETHING I KNOW I DIDNOT WANT. The guidelines does mention these type of surveys would be required but something inside of me told me that something is fishy here. After all, in Jul 2006, I had completed a very expensive course on Internet Marketing and studied well beyond this lesson to try and get into the internet ecommerce business.
That's when it hit me that this guy isn't legit! He only wants people who are gulliable enough to spend a great deal of their time signing up for stuff they know they really don't want so he can reap huge rewards for himself! This was a HOAX! This was just another form of Internet Marketing at its best. I was dumbfounded! I completed the 2nd assgnment (which was Kaplan University) and knew I would resigned at that point.
The next day, Oct 31st, on my way home from church, I received a call from a recruit from Kaplan Univ who was responding to the form I had filled out the nite before. Excusing myself, I advised the young man that it was all a mistake to disregard it. When I got home I immediately went into overdrive and started to scrutinize this more closely on the internet.