Is "Internationalservicecheck.com" a legitimate business

[Unregistered]

My wife registered with the above to do some survey work. She gave (unknown to me) a lot of personal information. She then received the following email and I immediately suspected identity theft. I have looked at the website and there are obvious omissions that would be present in a legit site - any views please?

Dear Service Checker:

Some time ago you registered as “Service Checker” / mystery shopper in our homepage. Thank you for your interest in working with us. Our web site is: www.internationalservicecheck.com

We could offer you a new task now. The task consists in visiting a well known shoes store. Now we are looking for checkers to visit the stores below in the next couple of days.



Mahon Point Shopping Center
IE-.... Mahon, Cork City,Unit 26



It would cost you approximately 45 - 50 minutes of your precious time to shopping and finish an online questionnaire. You would be paid 16€ for each store's visit. Are you interested? Would it be possible for you to do all of them? It would also be fantastic if you could tell somebody else and get them register on our home page. Thank you!!!



Form:

https://www.multisearchweb.com/registration/account/new.jsp



How to mystery shopping in this project:

You need go to a store and check their sale's service quality. During your visit, please ask more questions to make the sales associate talk. Please also check is the store and product display(s) clean and tidy? Are all lights in working condition and is music playing? Observe the Window Display of this particular store. Is the window display neatly arranged? Are the products displayed in the store window fitted with price tags? ln this visit, you must buy a pair of shoes for yourself and remember to pay cash for them! You will not have to bear the costs in purchasing a pair of shoes. 30mins after you finished your check, go back to the store and simply tell the sales that you just changed your mind (make an excuse) and ask for a refund.



ATTN: If you bought a pair of shoes for yourself, please record the receipt details before asking for refund. (Receipt number/Date/Amount. e.g. DD.MM.YYYY / EUR 99,99 / R123432T4B). Please write down in you personal report about what happened during you visit and in the end of the report please just write if you returned the shoes and received their refunded.



Payment:

After you finished your tasks, and send us your information on the web page, you will be asked for you bank details. Please ensure you have the following details avaliable: Name of Bank, Place of Bank,SWIFT code and IBAN number.



How to apply for this job:

In case you are interested, please reply to this mail, indicating your Tel number, the place where you would like to check and when you are available. After that we will consider you for the job and give you all necessary information. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me!







Look forward to hearing from you!



Alexandra Mrak


A.Mrak@internationalservicecheck.com

With Kindest Regards,
Alexandra Mrak
lnt. Project Manager

[joewein]

This website appears to be legitimate. It has been around for six years. Typical scam domains don't last much longer than two to three months:

Domain: internationalservicecheck.com
Created: 2000-03-17 15:08:57
Last_changed: 2006-01-23 14:09:44
Expiration: 2008-03-17 15:08:57
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK

[Registrant]
Handle: DNSNET-20422
Name: Martin Villgrater
Organization: Multisearch GmbH
Address-1: Stiglmaierplatz Dachauer Strasse 37
Address-2:
Address-3:
Zip: 80335
City: Muenchen
State: DE
Country: DE
Phone: +49-895-4558228
Fax: +49-895-47443
Email: m.villgrater@multisearchweb.com

[Administrative Contact]
Handle: DNSNET-20423
Name: Reinhold Auer
Organization: Multisearch GmbH
Address-1: Dachauer Strasse 37 Stiglmaierplatz
Address-2:
Address-3:
Zip: 80335
City: Muenchen
State: DE
Country: DE
Phone: +49-895-4558228
Fax: +49-895-47443
Email: r.auer@multisearchweb.com

[Technical Contact]
Handle: DNSNET-20424
Name: Christian Storch
Organization: InfraNet AG
Address-1: Postfach 20 10 40
Address-2:
Address-3:
Zip: 80010
City: Muenchen
State: DE
Country: DE
Phone: +49-897-435230
Fax: +49-000-000
Email: vertrieb@infra.net

[Zone Contact]
Handle: DNSNET-20425
Name: Christian Storch
Organization: InfraNet AG
Address-1: Postfach 20 10 40
Address-2:
Address-3:
Zip: 80010
City: Muenchen
State: DE
Country: DE
Phone: +49-897-435230
Fax: +49-000-000
Email: vertrieb@infra.net

[Nameserver]
Nameserver: NS.INFRA.NET
Nameserver: NS2.INFRA.NET


Here's a press release about them:
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=163453

It looks like a real company.

Personally I would have an ethical problem buying something in a store without any intention of keeping it, but at least there is no indication that these people are doing anything illegal.

[Daneel]

Except for that they forgot to remove the zero in the area code for the numbers on their contact page :lol: I can't find anything that points to them being any kind of scam. Just an unusual business model.

[Unregistered]

Thanks to both of you for your response. I still believe there is something fishy about this company. They ask you to fill a very detailed form getting info about yourself - some of which would not be asked for in a normal job application. Then, a week later they ask you to go into a shoe shop (because you selected shoes as a fashion interest) and carry out a very unprofessional survey. The shop is not specified only a unit in a shopping centre 160 miles away (they obviously pick these up from a directory). Then they say they will pay you €16 for the survey but you must now supply all your banking details. Sorry, but I believe this is not legitimate. They have no customer references on their site.

Regards.

[Daneel]

Ok I went through the form. They do ask for a lot of personal information, and they don't seem to have any privacy policy that I could find, which is never a good sign. It's possible they may sell it on to third parties/marketing companies. Though they do have a proper address and contact numbers listed, which makes them much less likely to be a pure scam.

Most legitimate company websites don't have customer references, but a surprising number of scam sites do. That's not really a safe indicator.

I've never run into anything similar before, so I'm afraid I can't say anything for sure. Better safe than sorry, I suppose ;)

[Frazzle]

It's certainly unethical.

Once you've bought a pair of shoes, you own them. The store has NO obligation to take them back. Note that there is no offer of a refund from the service check company. You could very well be left owning a pair of shoes you don't want (and perhaps cannot afford).

They're asking you to lie to the store to (attempt to) obtain a refund. I certainly wouldn't want to work for a company whose business is based on their employees lying.

I wonder whether the company also lies to its own (potential) employees?

I wouldn't touch this with a bargepole.

[joewein]

I think it's a good policy to avoid doing business with companies that behave unethically. If nothing else, if they behave unethically with others they may do the same to you.

[Unregistered]

Thank you again for replies.
I seriously believe these guys are not legitimate but may be a front so can stay in busines. Basically what they ask you to do is drive 300 miles roundtrip to a shop unit number (no name given), lie to the staff, risk money on a purchase and then send an unformatted report with all your bank details and they pay you €16 ($18)!!!!!. My guess is they come back later and get more info and pass all of this to a third party who pay for the info. It would be easy to use the information to write to your bank and request a funds transfer.

Probably worth keeping a watch on these. They list a German office but the email comes from Bosnia or Macedonia. Worth a further probe.

Regards,

Des.

[anonymous]

ISC is NOT a fraud.I have worked for them & recieved my payment on time.