Reshipping scams target job-seekers looking for remote work. Beware of these red flags.

Early in the pandemic, Krystelle Goodman lost her job as a sales consultant at Zales Jewelers in the Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn, Michigan.

School closures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 meant her teenage daughter ended up learning remotely at home, like other Detroit-area students. And Goodman decided to try to find a job that allowed her to keep tabs on her daughter and offer help when needed by working from home. 

Goodman, 35, scoured online sites like Indeed for potential jobs and didn't find anything. Around June, she received an email out of the blue, supposedly based on her online resume, for what seemed like the perfect work-at-home opportunity.

She was to receive packages for customers who were somehow in a country that wasn't able to access Amazon to sell their products. 

The packages were sent to her home on Detroit's west side. 

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What was getting shipped? 

Her duties: Open the box to confirm the item arrived in good shape, and go online to get a shipping label. Then, she was to print that label on her printer and repackage the item in a new box to send elsewhere. Finally, she'd get in the car and haul the package somewhere like a Federal Express office or UPS to ship. 

"Half of the stuff they sent was pretty heavy," Goodman said. Sometimes, her boyfriend would help her handle it. 

Some boxes had $50 ice buckets for champagne. Some had parts for snowmobiles. One involved a snowmobile lift, which she later priced online for around $500. 

Many of the items went to an address in Blaine, Minnesota, a suburb north of the Twin Cities. 

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One time, she said, a FedEx ship center in Dearborn wouldn't accept a package, and she had to email the company to find out what to do next.

They told her to just try another store. She headed to the Livonia stor,e and the box was shipped from there. 

Things seemed to be going OK. The boxes kept arriving, and she didn't mind since she was to be paid $50 for each package she shipped.

She was supposed to wait one month to be paid. But she didn't receive a dime after shipping 22 packages over a month's time. She was out what would have been $1,100 for the packages and more than $400 in expenses. 

After that month, the emails slowed, and she wasn't receiving more packages. And she never got any money. 

"I don't even know what they were doing with this stuff," Goodman said. "Whoever these people are, they knew what they were doing." 

Looking back, she said, she might have been suspicious when the company hired her without conducting a background check.

She never talked with anyone – all communication was by email. 

Goodman said she's usually the one in the family who can sniff out a scam. Even so, she wasn't suspicious until the company went silent.  

Like many hard hit by job cuts, though, Goodman said she desperately wanted a job. She had just bought a new car a month or so before the pandemic hit, got behind on her bills, and ultimately filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last spring.

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"It's unfortunate, and I'm just trying to find a legitimate opportunity now to be able to work and get myself back on my feet," she said.

Consumer watchdogs are warning of an uptick in job scams, such as reshipping scams, as many unemployed workers try to find positions where they can work at home.

Across Michigan, the Better Business Bureau has received 10 reports of reshipping employment scams in the past six months. 

"A lot of the time, they claim to be from a business that actually exists; other times, they will make up a business name and website," said Ashley Gibbard, marketing coordinator for the Better Business Bureau Serving Eastern Michigan. 

"These jobs are always remote and claim to pay very well, which makes them appealing to applicants." 

How this scam can start

Many times, victims discover a job on a popular site, such as LinkedIn, Indeed or Craigslist. Or, the scammers troll sites for victims who have their resumes listed, according to the BBB.

Some end up getting recruited for tasks or jobs via  dating websites as well, where a fake "sweetheart" asks for help with packages. 

Another red flag: The pay that's promised to work from home is often far more than $15 or $20 an hour. 

The phony jobs use fancy titles, such as a "shipping coordinator" or "logistics manager" or "package processing assistant" or "package handler." No one is going to advertise, of course, that we need someone to assist in laundering stolen merchandise. 

The Indeed website warns: "During the holiday season, scammers might also seek gift wrappers. In this variation of the reshipping scam, you'd receive a package at your home, gift wrap it and then reship it."

But the site notes that "there are no legitimate work opportunities that involve receiving packages and shipping them to someone else from your home."

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What's likely going on here

The FBI and others warn that consumers who take on these reshipping jobs are getting caught up in fraud rings that launder merchandise or money.

The crime rings can use stolen credit card numbers, forged credit cards or counterfeit money orders to buy expensive goods or equipment online. To get their cash, though, the crooks are going to need to resell those goods on the black market. 

The FBI warns that instead of having the items shipped to the billing address, the fraudster sends them to what’s called a “reshipper." 

How to avoid a scam

Anyone who does any kind of job and doesn't get paid ends up losing hours where they could have worked on a real job that offered a real paycheck.

And you're at risk of being arrested for committing a felony.

Stopping to ask a few question can be an easy way to avoid a scam.

First, what legitimate company is going to send you laptops, electronics, jewelry or equipment in a box so that you can ship the goods out of the country? Or to another location in the United States? 

Also, why, given concerns about shipping delays, would anyone add another step to the process and ship something twice? Really? How does that make any sense? 

Sure, some parts of this deal could look real. The items being sent to Goodman, for example, didn't seem all that exciting. Who cares about ice buckets? And the company provided prepaid shipping labels. Again, experts warn that stolen information often is used to pay for those shipping labels.

Sometimes, the scam involves buying gift cards or postal money orders, or transferring money, which can be done at home.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service continues to warn that job seekers can end up unwittingly becoming what's known as a money mule – someone who receives and transfers money obtained via fraud.

"Never accept or send packages on behalf of others," according to an alert from the Postal Inspection Service. 

Do some research on a company to see whether there are complaints. See whether a company really has postings on its website, and then reach out to the company to see whether  the job is legitimate. 

If you either can’t find a website, or the website looks suspicious – such as typos or no physical address – treat that as a red flag.

Contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at uspis.gov/report or 877-876-2455 to report a money mule scam. For more information on money mule scams, go to www.uspis.gov/money-mule.

The FBI notes you can also file a report at www.ic3.gov.

As much as many people might be eager to pick up extra work during the holiday season, it's important to recognize that scammers are ready and willing to take advantage of anyone who is looking for a job.

"I don't think a lot of people know about this," Goodman said, adding that these types of job openings are "100% bogus." 

ContactSusan Tompor: stompor@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter@tompor. To subscribe, please go to freep.com/specialoffer. Read more on business and sign up for our business newsletter.