new scam? or old scam in new clothes

[T77911S]

im sure this is old news but here goes.
my wife got a letter, and check for $2900 saying she can be a secret shopper or something along those lines. it looked very real. i looked it over carefully because i new some one years ago that actually did this. it had instructions on where to shop and what to do, THEN, at the end it had the breakdown of how to spend the money. $160 at walmart, $90 at Macdonalds (that is how they spelled it) some other small amount somewhere else and then $1800 wired to someplace to see how the transfer went. another way to get you to cash a check and send them money. the first thing that caught our eye was the canada post mark.
beware

[Tishabet]

sort of a variation on the "here's a check for more than I owe you, please send me the difference."

The check will get deposited to your account and reflect in your account balance, they're hoping you'll wire then some of the money in your account before the check proves to be fraudulent.

So for example, if your checking account has $100 in it and the check is for $100, your balance will reflect $200 once you deposit it. You then send a $50 wire to the scammer's account, and your balance is now $150. A few days later your bank realizes the check is a fraud, and corrects your balance to $50. Now you're out $50 to the scammer.

[dhoward]

Scam.
No doubt.