Probe into shopper scam

The detective branch in Ennis is investigating a further street shopper scam incident after another Clare person became suspicious after receiving a cheque in relation to a similar job advertised locally.

An Ennis woman who applied for the job of a street shopper has told The Clare Champion about her dealings in this regard and why she felt this was a scam.
“I saw the ad, which was for a mystery shopper, and offered €250 to €300 cash a week and I responded to it. I hadn’t heard from them in about four weeks and I forgot about it. Then I heard back from them to say I was chosen and to send on my name, address, contact number and email. I was told that my role would be to carry out a Western Union money transfer and that they had complaints about money going missing and that the service was taking too long and I would be trying to expose that,” she explained.
She then received a cheque by post, which was a French cheque from the Banco Popular France in the amount of €2,945 and she was instructed to lodge the money with her bank and take a €300 commission from it. She was then told to go to a particular Western Union office and to transfer the remaining money to another Western Union office. But the Ennis resident knew that something was amiss.
“Firstly, they had spelt my name wrong on the cheque so I emailed them to tell them they had spelt my name wrong and that the bank wouldn’t accept it. When they responded they told me that I was to email them when I had lodged the cheque. Another thing that struck me was that the stamp on the letter was a UK stamp and this was a French cheque so that made no sense. My next step was to go to the bank and see if it was genuine or not but then I saw the article in The ‘Champion about the scam and I knew it wasn’t real. I felt like a twat,” she admitted.
Following this, she reported the matter to the gardaí. 
The matter is now under investigation, however, as the ad and the cheque originated in the UK, gardaí explained that they have referred the matter to the police in England.
“It is an offence to commit fraud or deception but unless the offence occurred in the Republic, then it will be difficult to formulate a case. We have notified the British authorities and if we can get any evidence in the Republic we will forward that to them,” a garda spokesperson confirmed.
He also highlighted that the job was a scam and that Western Union was a reputable and legitimate business.