Wilson Grant Fisk
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- Nov 10, 2012
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Scam Alert: This Con Can Cost You Money -- And Send You To Jail
Kelli Williams, a market researcher by day, was looking for a little side hustle. The 38-year-old from Oak Park, Ill., cruised Craigslist and found what seemed like a great moonlighting gig. “It seemed like it would be perfect. You could work as many or as few hours as you wanted and it was all done from your computer, remotely,” she said.
A guy named “Bill” had a warehouse in California and wanted her to list items on eBay—under Williams’ account—and manage the transactions and inquiries. Bill would receive the order and ship the goods to the customers. “It all actually worked at first. I listed the items, the people received them, I got some money,” Williams said.
The honeymoon didn’t last long. “As I took on more and larger items, complaints started rolling in. People weren't getting their items. They were demanding refunds. I kept pestering Bill and he would say the item was on its way. More emails, more demands for refunds. His next excuse was that they got lost in the mail (and he told me some ridiculous percentage of items get lost in the mail every day).”
But because the items were under Williams’ name and account, she was responsible for giving out refunds for increasingly expensive items, such as exercise equipment, electronics and software. “The last time I contacted Bill to essentially beg him to make this right, he became a totally different person (for all I know he could have been) and threatened me. He said he knew where I lived and worked and would send his ‘family in Chicago’ after me.”
Vanessa McGrady ,
Contributor
I cover the art of family finance and becoming a more savvy consumer.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Tweet This
A guy named “Bill” had a warehouse in California and wanted her to list items on eBay—under Williams’ account—and manage the transactions and inquiries. Bill would receive the order and ship the goods to the customers. “It all actually worked at first. I listed the items, the people received them, I got some money,” Williams said.
The honeymoon didn’t last long. “As I took on more and larger items, complaints started rolling in. People weren't getting their items. They were demanding refunds. I kept pestering Bill and he would say the item was on its way. More emails, more demands for refunds. His next excuse was that they got lost in the mail (and he told me some ridiculous percentage of items get lost in the mail every day).”
But because the items were under Williams’ name and account, she was responsible for giving out refunds for increasingly expensive items, such as exercise equipment, electronics and software. “The last time I contacted Bill to essentially beg him to make this right, he became a totally different person (for all I know he could have been) and threatened me. He said he knew where I lived and worked and would send his ‘family in Chicago’ after me.”
Scam victims not only lose money, but they can become an accessory to a crime.
In all, Williams lost about $5,000 in what's known as a "reshipping scam," and she had to start all over again building a new eBay account because all the bad reviews had made her original one unusable. This happened about 13 years ago, and she's since rebuilt her reputation, but unfortunately, she’s not alone in falling victim to a scam. According to the FBI, college students, especially now, are prone to this kind of con. “Never accept a job that requires depositing checks into your account or wiring portions to other individuals or accounts,” the FBI warns on its website.
"Reshipping scams, like many job scams, are appealing because they offer the opportunity to get a job and get paid quickly. Because they don't have any experiential or educational requirements, most job seekers are qualified for these sorts of scam jobs, which allows scammers to access a bigger pool of potential victims. Most job seekers feel at least some pressure to get a job quickly, especially if they've been out of work or need extra income to meet their debt obligations. Scammers understand this vulnerability and they prey on it," says Brie Reynolds, a senior career specialist at FlexJobs.com, an agency that helps place people in legitimate work-from-home and part-time positions.
And to make matters worse, the damage could go beyond losing money for the victims . "Reshipping job scams aren't just annoying--they can actually involve job seekers in criminal activities. Most of the time, the goods being reshipped are stolen, and once a person receives those stolen goods and then mails them to another location, they've unwittingly become part of that crime," Reynolds says. In fact, to her knowledge, there are basically zero legitimate reshipping jobs.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/vanessamcgrady/2017/03/17/scam/#104b77606d27
Kelli Williams, a market researcher by day, was looking for a little side hustle. The 38-year-old from Oak Park, Ill., cruised Craigslist and found what seemed like a great moonlighting gig. “It seemed like it would be perfect. You could work as many or as few hours as you wanted and it was all done from your computer, remotely,” she said.
A guy named “Bill” had a warehouse in California and wanted her to list items on eBay—under Williams’ account—and manage the transactions and inquiries. Bill would receive the order and ship the goods to the customers. “It all actually worked at first. I listed the items, the people received them, I got some money,” Williams said.
The honeymoon didn’t last long. “As I took on more and larger items, complaints started rolling in. People weren't getting their items. They were demanding refunds. I kept pestering Bill and he would say the item was on its way. More emails, more demands for refunds. His next excuse was that they got lost in the mail (and he told me some ridiculous percentage of items get lost in the mail every day).”
But because the items were under Williams’ name and account, she was responsible for giving out refunds for increasingly expensive items, such as exercise equipment, electronics and software. “The last time I contacted Bill to essentially beg him to make this right, he became a totally different person (for all I know he could have been) and threatened me. He said he knew where I lived and worked and would send his ‘family in Chicago’ after me.”
Vanessa McGrady ,
Contributor
I cover the art of family finance and becoming a more savvy consumer.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Tweet This
- “Never accept a job that requires depositing checks into your account or wiring portions to other individuals or accounts,”
- the damage could go beyond losing money for the victims
A guy named “Bill” had a warehouse in California and wanted her to list items on eBay—under Williams’ account—and manage the transactions and inquiries. Bill would receive the order and ship the goods to the customers. “It all actually worked at first. I listed the items, the people received them, I got some money,” Williams said.
The honeymoon didn’t last long. “As I took on more and larger items, complaints started rolling in. People weren't getting their items. They were demanding refunds. I kept pestering Bill and he would say the item was on its way. More emails, more demands for refunds. His next excuse was that they got lost in the mail (and he told me some ridiculous percentage of items get lost in the mail every day).”
But because the items were under Williams’ name and account, she was responsible for giving out refunds for increasingly expensive items, such as exercise equipment, electronics and software. “The last time I contacted Bill to essentially beg him to make this right, he became a totally different person (for all I know he could have been) and threatened me. He said he knew where I lived and worked and would send his ‘family in Chicago’ after me.”
Scam victims not only lose money, but they can become an accessory to a crime.
In all, Williams lost about $5,000 in what's known as a "reshipping scam," and she had to start all over again building a new eBay account because all the bad reviews had made her original one unusable. This happened about 13 years ago, and she's since rebuilt her reputation, but unfortunately, she’s not alone in falling victim to a scam. According to the FBI, college students, especially now, are prone to this kind of con. “Never accept a job that requires depositing checks into your account or wiring portions to other individuals or accounts,” the FBI warns on its website.
"Reshipping scams, like many job scams, are appealing because they offer the opportunity to get a job and get paid quickly. Because they don't have any experiential or educational requirements, most job seekers are qualified for these sorts of scam jobs, which allows scammers to access a bigger pool of potential victims. Most job seekers feel at least some pressure to get a job quickly, especially if they've been out of work or need extra income to meet their debt obligations. Scammers understand this vulnerability and they prey on it," says Brie Reynolds, a senior career specialist at FlexJobs.com, an agency that helps place people in legitimate work-from-home and part-time positions.
And to make matters worse, the damage could go beyond losing money for the victims . "Reshipping job scams aren't just annoying--they can actually involve job seekers in criminal activities. Most of the time, the goods being reshipped are stolen, and once a person receives those stolen goods and then mails them to another location, they've unwittingly become part of that crime," Reynolds says. In fact, to her knowledge, there are basically zero legitimate reshipping jobs.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/vanessamcgrady/2017/03/17/scam/#104b77606d27
