After returning from a short trip and sorting the mail that had accumulated for a few days, I found a curious item. Most prominent was the Amazon logo and color scheme. As a long-time customer, this was not unusual. But other things were.

The first thing, out of many, was that it wasn’t addressed to me—odd, since Amazon has my address, it was addressed to “Current Occupant.” About 20 years ago, I ran a printing and mailing company, so I recognized this addressing scheme. The senders had purchased a saturation list. This is a mailing list that contains no names, but will contain every address in a given target region. It is what you use if you are casting a wide net for customers, and in this case marks or suckers.

The card was sent First Class mail and as a postcard qualified for the cheapest possible rate, about $.357, as opposed to $.53 for a single card. This is because lists like this are arranged in what is called “walk-sequence” so that the mail carrier doesn’t have to do any final sorting, just drop them off as he walks his route.

To fully deliver the appearance of legitimacy, there was a generic name and a return address in San Mateo—a contrary fact to the mailing label which stated that it was sent out by a mailing house in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Most people are not going to notice technical mailing oddities, but as I say, I was in that business. But other things will become apparent very quickly once you read the card. The English is not bad, but is distinctly off. It was not written by a native English-speaker.

The card contains a pitch about signing up to become a product tester and receive commissions, up to $40, for testing products which would be sent to you for free. You are then invited to scan a QR code or email someone at jointestclub.com.

A quick check of that domain name reveals that it is registered in China and hosted at Alibaba.com, which, Like Amazon sells everything under the sun, including web hosting services.

There is nothing real about this offer, so why spend the money to mass print these cards and fire them out on what is actually an expensive fishing effort? Simple. Because there is money in it—your money.

Product testing scams are actually identity theft scams. These crooks are offering to “employ” you. So you will be asked for all the normal information you would give any employer including your Social Security number and banking information so they can “pay” you. But in reality, you have just handed them the keys to robbing you blind, setting up fake credit accounts in your name, etc.

The product-tester scam is not new. It has been around as spam emails and cheap ads on Facebook for years. But there’s something about direct mail that many people do not know. While it is one of the more expensive methods of promotion, it has a much higher response rate than email or online ads. If someone sent out 10,000 postcards they might get as many 30-40 responses. And for these guys, that’s 30-40 bank accounts to drain and credit ratings to ruin. That’s a big return on their investment in the mailing effort.

In reality Amazon actually does do a product evaluation program. It is by invitation only. The program is called Vine. It offers no money and the exchange they require for participation is an honest review written about the product. That’s it.

Apparently there are enough suckers out there that these scammers have decided to up their theft volume by using the US Postal Service as a tool. Of course, that’s a Federal crime known as mail fraud. This one is being reported to the US Postal Inspection Service.

If you get one of these little scam invitations in your mailbox, feel free to do anything you like with it, including taking it to the post office and reporting the crime. Just don’t think the offer is anything but an attempted mugging.