There is a new mystery shopping scam going around called American Consumer Eyes. If you have been contacted by this company then do NOT follow through with what they want you to do. The job they are giving you is fake and you could potentially lose thousands of dollars, as other people already have.

You might be wondering how the scam works and how they can possibly scam you out of thousands of dollars and in this quick review I will explain how. But the bottom line is that this is a scam that you don’t want to get involved with. There are plenty of legitimate mystery shopping jobs out there from companies that really will pay you to do a fun little mystery shopping gigs, this just isn’t one of them.

American Consumer Eyes Review

American Consumer Eyes that’s a very nice-looking website, one that seems to be the real deal. They claim that mystery shopping is their main service but they also provide web surveys for companies to help them improve their brand. This makes sense because it is another good way to get people’s opinions on things and paid surveys for market research are very popular these days. In addition to this they also claim to provide marketing research service.

The mystery shopping job is advertised as a way to make up to $300 weekly. Nothing stands out here as being a scam either. This is by no means in outrageous claim… $300 a week seems reasonable. However, when you go to actually apply for the mystery shopping job you are then told that you could make up to $300 per shopping trip. Now things are starting to seem a little more scammy.

$300 for one shopping trip that probably takes less than an hour? Come on now…

But anyways… As I said this is all a scam. A very well laid out scam, but a scam nonetheless.

I would also like to point out that this scam is a fairly new one. They claim to have been around providing these services for over 20 years but this is just a lie. I have not been able to find any such information showing that they have been around even relatively close to this length of time. From what I have found out their website was just created in 2017.

So How Do They Scam You?

A little while after you apply for the mystery shopping job you will get an email saying that you are about to get your first assignment and a package will be coming in the mail to you. It will be a very upbeat email filled with excitement and is naturally you may get excited… But what the heck are they sending you a package for? This may seem a bit strange… Because it is a bit strange.

The patent they send you will be a check for usually a very large amount of money, in the thousands of dollars range. After you are send the check they usually then do most of their contacting via text. They will text you with additional instructions and tell you to text some number once you have completed the mystery shopping task.

The start of your task begins with you depositing your check or cashing it at your bank.

The most common mystery shopping task that they seem to be scamming people with is getting them to send some sort of money order. I have heard of people being asked to send money via MoneyGram to someone else and I have also heard of people being asked to go into Walmart and send money to someone using their Walmart 2 Walmart money transfer service.

What they tell you is that the point of this all is to test out the customer service when it comes to sending money. Makes sense… After all, with mystery shopping it is all about testing out customer service so that the stores can better improve how they operate. In the only way to fully test out the many sending services is to actually send money, right?

This Is Where You Get Scammed

What happens is that you will go and deposit the check, sending money, and then later find out that the check you deposited was a fake and you will have to pay the bank back. The reason this happens is because these are fake cashiers checks and much of the time it will take the bank a little while to figure out that they are fakes. If you are lucky, the bank will stop you right there and then as you are depositing check. They will pick up on it being a fake right away. However, much of the time this doesn’t happen and you will be forced to pay the money back after you already sent these scammers money as instructed in the  fake mystery shopping job.

I have also heard of people being sent massive checks, such as one person being sent a check for $2897.91 just to go shopping at places like Costco, Walgreens, Target, etc. These ones don’t make much sense to me, I’m guessing that there has to be more to the mystery shopping job than these people were told. Because if you are just told to go shopping then the scammers aren’t actually going to be making any money. You will still get screwed because you will end up spending money that you’d never actually had, because the check is fake, but the scammers will get paid. My guess is that there is more to the story here.

But anyways, the main mystery shopping scam going on here is getting people to send money to the scammers using some store’s money sending service.

How Much Money Are People Losing?

This is by no means a small scam that should be taken lightly. People are losing thousands of dollars that they will never be able to get back… Or probably never.

You can find a good bit of reviews from people who have been scams by American Consumer Eyes on the website ReportScam.com. There are people that have been scammed anywhere from $2000-$3000. I’m pretty sure $3000 was the most I have found anyone to be scammed out of, such as this guy it was told the common BS story of there being a mystery shopping job for him to send money to someone else using the Walmart 2 Walmart money transfer service…

Real Mystery Shopping Jobs

There or a lot of legitimate mystery shopping job opportunities out there and none of these are going to send you some massive check in the mail like American Consumer Eyes does.

From what I have found, many of them just seem to reimburse you after the fact. You will do your mystery shopping, but whatever products you are required to buy, and it will reimburse you after the job is completed. And usually the amount you are required to spend is minimal.

I have reviewed a fair number of legitimate mystery shopping services that provide jobs on my blog here, such as Maritz Mystery Shopping, Stericycle Mystery Shopping, Market Force and others. If you’re interested in pursuing a job in mystery shopping then you may want to check some of these out. However, these jobs are fairly limited and they aren’t always hiring new mystery shoppers.

Final Thoughts

American Consumer Eyes is it definite scam that you want to avoid. When I write reviews like this, if I am less than confident in any way or have any feeling that the opportunity could potentially be legitimate, then I will say so. But this does not apply here… American Consumer Eyes is a pure scam that hopefully will get shut down soon. But don’t count on it… The scam seems to be fairly professionally operated and I have seen plenty of scams get away with scamming people for years.

Conclusion: AVOID

Something else you may be interested in since you are looking to make some money in your spare time, which I am assuming is the reason you are looking into mystery shopping, is doing what I do. I make a living working online and have been doing so since 2015. The reason I think it might be of interest to you is because what I do can be done at any time and could be a nice way to earn some extra supplemental income or even has the potential to provide a substantial income. But anyways, you can click the button below to learn more about what I do, how it all works, and how you can get started:

Have you been scammed by American Consumer Eyes? If so I would love to hear about your experience. I am also sure that other readers of my blog here would appreciate you sharing it as well. We need to get the word out there to stop the scammers, or at the very least stop people from buying into this scam so that they don’t continually make money ripping people off.

Also, leave any comments or questions down below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can 🙂