TOLEDO, Ohio -
It sounded too good to be true -- and it was. One 13abc viewer says she fell victim to a secret shopper scam. Now she's lost cash, and her bank account is frozen.
"It happens to a lot of people, but no one ever follows through with it. Well, I'm going to follow through with it."
Sheila Clark says she was looking for a second job, when she spotted an ad in the classified section of The Toledo Journal.
The ad read: "Help wanted -- mystery shoppers…experience not required."
Clark responded to the ad, thinking she may have spotted an exciting opportunity.
"When you see something like that, you're like it's like a blessing in disguise, but really it's a curse."
After she responded, Clark says she got a phone call telling her she got the job, along with directions on how to be a mystery shopper.
Clark says she was supposed to "find out was the store up to par, was it clean, did the people know about the merchandise they were selling."
She says she came to the Walmart on Glendale to spend $100, as instructed. She bought items she says she would have wanted anyway.
Clark says she also deposited a check from the company for $3,988.21.
Before it cleared, they asked her to wire $1,600 to someone in Canada. She did.
Then the check she deposited bounced, and Clark's bank froze her accounts.
The Better Business Bureau says this type of scam has been popular lately, in part because of a federal loophole, which allows banks to increase your balance before a check clears.
Now would-be mystery shopper Sheila is trying to solve the mystery of where her money went and how she can get her money back.
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