Greg's Corner

Reshipping scam tries to pose as legitimate business

By Greg Collier

The reshipping or repackaging scam is one of the more dangerous scams for consumers. Usually, scammers will advertise this scam as a work from home position where your job is to inspect packages you receive from a shipping company You’re then instructed to inspect the items for damage before sending the items to a third party. The third party is usually someone overseas. These positions are often advertised online with such titles as ‘shipping coordinator’, ‘warehouse distribution coordinator, or ‘local hub inspector’. In reality, its just a way to traffic stolen goods and now some reshipping scammers are trying to appear as a legitimate service.

One man from the Kansas City Metro Area found this out recently when he applied for one of these positions as a second income. He was told that he’d be paid $2800 a month for inspecting the packages and shipping them off. The man didn’t find out he was scammed until he received a call from police stating that a stolen phone had been ordered in his name.

The scammers explained the fake position to the man as if they were a legitimate shipping service. They said that some vendors don’t accept overseas credit cards and that they were acting as middle men essentially. There are real and legitimate services like this. For instance, say you want to buy a collectible from a Japanese website, but they don’t ship to the US. These reshipping services will act as your Japanese address and will send the item to the US for a fee. What these platforms don’t do is advertise for work at home jobs, as the scammers would have you believe.

The real danger of the reshipping scam is that it could potentially land you in jail, even if you’re an unknowing participant. If you knowingly falsify shipping documents under the instruction of the scammers to get around US customs, you could potentially face a prison sentence.