It’s not every day you receive a cheque for $1,000, but when Bill Robertson opened his mail a couple weeks ago, that’s exactly what he got.

“It looked very authentic,” said Robertson.

Along with a cheque for $994, Robertson found a letter, allegedly from Canada Post, encouraging him to secretly pose as a customer, sending funds through Western Union in order to help rate the performance level of the money transfer service.

Specifically the letter said, “Your task is to pose as a customer sending funds to a friend or family member.  If you wish to continue, we will send you identical performance level tests two to four times weekly.”

After reading the letter over a couple times, something about the whole thing seemed off to Robertson, so he went down to Canada Post to have the document verified.

Speaking with the manager at the local post office, he discovered the address included in the letter head proved to authentic, as well as the address listed on the cheque.  But still, something seemed off, so Robertson took the cheque to the Bank of Montreal where he spoke with the manager, Leslie Anderson.

“I thought, ‘well this doesn’t sound legitimate’ to start with, and number two, they sent me a cheque for 900 dollars or whatever it was,” said Robertson.  “When things appear too good to be true, they are.”

After looking at the cheque and calling TD Canada Trust (the bank where the cheque was drawn from) Anderson was able to determine the cheque was indeed a fake.

“It looks really like an official cheque, however, there’s digits missing from the bottom of it,” said Robertson.

Once the cheque was confirmed fraudulent, Robertson figured the best plan of action was to contact the RCMP.

There, he was given a number to a hotline in Toronto called Scambusters.

However, at this point, Robertson said he was fed up with the whole situation and decided not to call the hotline.

Instead, he decided to pass on the letter to the Osoyoos Times in an effort to spread the word and prevent anyone else from falling prey to this scam.

“There may be other people who receive these.  I have no idea how they got my name,” said Robertson.

“Maybe nobody else has received these letters, but maybe there’s a 100 people who have received letters, I have no idea,” said Robertson.

After speaking with Robertson, the Osoyoos Times attempted to contact Marc White, the representative listed at the bottom of the letter.  White answered the phone on the first call, but after explaining who we were and why we were calling, he immediately hung up.

All further calls have since gone unanswered and are now being directed to an answering service for Global Test Market.

For anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation to Robertson’s, Canada Post has provided a link to their website with instructions for anyone who receives one of these letters.  That information can be found at http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/aboutus/news/announcements/tips_fraudulent_letters.jsf.