(MOBILE, Ala.) We've got a scam alert to tell you about.
It's something you may want to be looking for in your mailbox.
A woman contacted Local 15 to say she got a check that looked like it was from State Farm Insurance.
She didn't follow the instructions that came along with that phony check or she might have got herself into a lot of trouble financially.
"I got this letter in the mail Saturday along with a $1,950 check," said Brenda Culotta. It sounded great at first.
After all, she was about to be nearly $2,000 richer.
"I give them a call because it says it's from money pack and they wanted me to be a mystery shopper at Wal-Mart," she said. "He told me I need to deposit a check into my bank, then take $900 out to buy the money gram," said Culotta.
Only Brenda Culotta doesn't have a bank account, so she took it to a nearby check cashing company.
"And when they ran it it came up as suspicious activity and I couldn't cash it," said Culotta.
"The mystery shoppers is probably one of the most active scams we get in this office. We get about 100 calls a week on that," said Stephanie Knight, President of the Better Business Bureau of South Alabama.
The BBB says scammers like these want access to your banking information. So if you get a check that looks suspicious, contact the business that issued the check first.
"In this case State Farm. Call them and say, hey, I got these funds. Is this really for me?" said Knight.
"I'm just concerned because if this had gone to my grandmother or elderly neighbors down the street and it said State Farm, I might have thought it was an insurance check and taken it straight to the bank," said Culotta.
She hopes her story will prevent someone else from being a victim.
"I think it's a shame. And I think people like this need to be arrested," said Culotta.
Strategic Universal Marketing Incorporated sent the letter, according to what it says on the piece of paper she received in the mail along with the check.
Local 15 called the number on the letter multiple times. As soon as we identified we were a television news station calling, the person on the other end of the phone said we had the wrong number and hung up.
