The Reshipping Scam: How a Fake Job Offer Can Turn You Into an Unwitting Criminal

You see an ad online for a “logistics coordinator” or “package handler” that promises you can work from home, set your own hours, and earn a decent salary with no experience required. The company claims to be an international shipping firm or an e-commerce fulfillment center. They send you a check to buy equipment, then ask you to receive packages at your home, inspect them, repackage them, and forward them to another address. You think you’ve landed a legitimate gig. In reality, you have become the middleman in a nationwide fraud ring.

This is the reshipping scam, one of the most insidious work-from-home ripoffs targeting middle-class Americans right now. The scammers use stolen credit cards to purchase high-value electronics, designer goods, or luxury items from online retailers. They have those items shipped to your home. You then ship them abroad or to a “fulfillment center” that is actually a fence operation. The fraud is completed, and the original victim—the person whose credit card was stolen—gets stuck with the bill. Meanwhile, law enforcement traces the illicit goods straight to your doorstep.

The pitch sounds convincing. The fake employer gives you a job title like “merchandise processor” or “quality control specialist.” They send you a formal offer letter with company letterhead, a pay schedule, and sometimes even an employee handbook. You are instructed to download a messaging app like WhatsApp or Telegram for daily communication—never a company email system. Your “supervisor” explains that you will receive packages, verify the contents, remove any old labels or invoices, and then affix a new shipping label that they provide. You are told never to open the original shipping box, or if you do, not to touch the items. They claim it is to protect against theft or tampering. In truth, they want to keep you from noticing that the merchandise is brand new with high resale value.

The first red flag is the check they send you. The fake employer will mail you a check for several hundred or even a few thousand dollars. You are instructed to deposit it into your personal bank account, then use that money to purchase shipping supplies—tape, boxes, labels—from a specific vendor they recommend. The check is fraudulent. It can take days or weeks for your bank to detect the forgery. By then you have already spent the money on supplies and forwarded the packages. When the check bounces, the bank takes the money back. You are out the cash you spent, plus any overdraft fees. And you still have to explain to law enforcement why stolen goods passed through your home.

Reshipping scammers target people who are financially stable but looking for extra income—retirees, stay-at-home parents, veterans, and those between jobs. They prey on your trust and your desire to contribute to the household budget. They know that a well-meaning, law-abiding person will follow instructions, especially when they are wrapped in professional jargon. The scam works because the packages you receive are real merchandise bought with real stolen credit cards. The victims of the identity theft are usually elderly or less tech-savvy consumers whose card numbers were lifted in a data breach.

What makes this scam particularly dangerous is that you are committing a federal crime. The act of receiving stolen property and shipping it across state lines or international borders is mail fraud, wire fraud, and trafficking in stolen goods. You are the one whose name appears on the shipping records. Even if you can prove you were duped, you may still face prosecution, asset forfeiture, and a permanent criminal record. The scammer, operating from overseas or behind a VPN, will be impossible to find. You become the fall guy.

If you are job hunting, be skeptical of any position that involves receiving and reshipping packages. Legitimate companies handle their own logistics. They do not need you to use your personal address as a waypoint. A real employer will never send you a check to buy equipment before you have worked a single hour. They will not communicate solely through encrypted messaging apps. And they will never instruct you to strip away tracking numbers or original invoices—that is a clear sign they are hiding the chain of custody from retailers and police.

Take a few minutes to research the company. Look up the business address on Google Maps. Call the number listed on their website. If the number is disconnected or goes to a generic voicemail, run. Search for the company name plus the word “scam” online. Most of these operations change names quickly, but the pattern is universal. Trust your gut: if a job offers you decent pay for almost no effort, the effort is being extracted from someone else’s bank account.

If you have already fallen for this scam, stop immediately. Do not forward any more packages. Do not spend any more of the fraudulent check. Contact your bank and explain the situation. Then call the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) or your local police department’s fraud unit. The faster you cooperate, the better your chances of being treated as a victim rather than a co-conspirator. And warn your friends and neighbors. The reshipping scam is growing because it relies on good people making a bad decision. Do not let it be you.