Work At Home Scam Alert: Package Manager

Today there was a job posted on my site that immediately aroused suspicion.  The job was for a “package manager”.  Since I have seen many scams that involve shipping packages, I knew I should really look at this one.

Here’s what they posted:

Honest workers needed for a package processing company located in NY, but any location in US are welcome!  We have customers worlwide and started that position to suit they needs. We offer you 40$ for each proccessed package.  The payment shall be made twice a month. The Company shall also bear all shipping expenses. Your salary is totaly depends on your ability to work fast and handy.
If you’re interested in that position be welcome to send a questions or resume to resume@nottherealwebsite.com.
You can also call us at 1-347-555-1212

I’ve highlighted the numerous spelling and grammatical errors for your amusement.  Of course that’s always a quick way to spot a potential scam but this one goes beyond that and it’s not remotely funny.  The credit card that was used to post the listing was stolen.  The card belongs to a man in Wisconsin, but the phone number given was in New York (as is the one given in the listing).  I called the number and it’s a fax machine.

The next thing I did was to go to the website of this “company”.  At first glance it looks like a shipping company, but that’s not really what I’m looking for.  What I want to see is some contact information that matches the credit card.  On their contact page there are several addresses in various countries but none in Wisconsin.  Now, I want to look up the contact information for whoever registered the domain name.  This is often where you’ll get the most accurate information.  As I suspected, it was registered by someone in the Ukraine….which is where most of these “package shipping” scams come from.

Luckily, the guy who’s credit card was used could be Googled as he owns a successful racing company.  I called him to let him know that someone had obtained and was using his credit card information.

The other side of this is the job listing itself.  They always claim to pay a high income (in this case $900 per week) to accept packages and then ship them to foreign countries.  This is called being a package mule.  You’ve probably heard of drug mules, well this is the same thing.  If you participate in this kind of activity you are breaking the law and can be held responsible financially and may even end up in jail.

So, be very careful as you’re looking at work at home job listings.  There are a lot of unethical people out there who think nothing of luring you into illegal activity that could ruin your life.

Tags: job searching, Scams, work at home jobs