What to know about ‘reshipping fraud,’ and how to catch it

Now, at 5:30 on Eyewitness News, a pitch too good to be true was actually a scam with a woman waiting on a paycheck that never came. Infuriates me it does. She thought she had found a job helping to ship items. Turns out though, she was shipping stolen items to scammers. Action 9's Jason Stujenki is live tonight in Charlotte. With how this all works, Jason. Yeah, well, Scott, the scammers are basically shipping items and what do they want to do? They want to erase the paper trail, so they use you to reship the packages. Boxes, parcels, packages. Ivy Bynum says she found this job online, making shipments sound too good to be true. And actually, it was. She says the scammer sent her packages of valuable items. iPad, minis, iPhones. Binoculars, watches. She told me the con artist instructed her to change the labels and send them off again. Take it to the UPS or FedEx or the post office and ship it back out. The Postal Service calls this con reshipping fraud. It says the scam begins when criminals buy high dollar merchandise such as computers, cameras and other electronics via the Internet using stolen credit cards. They have the merchandise shipped addresses in the United States. Of paid reshippers infuriates me. It does. The scammers make their illegally bought goods harder to trace. And you get, well, nothing. But no money came. No money came. How much were they supposed to pay you? I supposed to make $3300? All right, so my advice in these situations, never give personal information to someone you don't know. Be suspicious of any offer you find online, overseas or not, that doesn't pay a regular salary. And remember, you can always ask the BBB, the FTC or your state's consumer protection agency if they've had problems with the business. We're live in North Charlotte. Jason Stujanki, Channel 9, Eyewitness News. All right, Jason, thank.