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DWYM: This shipping scam doesn't pay like it promises

DWYM: This shipping scam doesn't pay like it promises
Posted at 8:25 AM, Oct 04, 2021
and last updated 2021-10-04 10:50:57-04

Work from home jobs are more popular than ever, with many people not wanting to go back to a crowded workplace during the pandemic.

But the Better Business Bureau is warning about a scam they say won't pay like it promises.

And could even get you into trouble with the law.

Dominique Garrett lost her job during the pandemic, so she started looking for work from home opportunities.

"I was just looking for something I could do at home," Garrett said.

She spotted a shipping company that claimed it was in Northern Kentucky.

"They were just looking for a quality inspector," she said.

But it was strange: they started sending her boxes to repack, and mail out.

So she sent out a few, until one made her stop in her tracks.

"There was a particular package that raised my suspicion, and it was for bullets, and I said wait, hold on," Garrett said.

Now think about how this so-called job works.

You receive packages in the mail, you unpack them, removing all evidence of where they came from, and them repackage them and mail them out from your home.

"Especially when you are shipping packages across state lines, and even countries," said Sara Kemerer of the Better Business Bureau. "That should be an immediate red flag."

Kemerer says Garrett was targeted by the reshipping scam.

The BBB has just issued a nationwide alert about this job offer after hundreds of similar complaints.

“You don't know what you are sending," Kemerer said. "It could be illegal products, money, stolen goods."

That's right: you could participating in a criminal operation.

"I was like, this might be what actually happened to me," Garrett said.

The Kentucky company?

The BBB has put out an alert saying it doesn't really exist.

Garrett says she never got paid for the few boxes she did ship.

But worse: she wonders what she was sending.

So be careful and don’t waste your money.