Did You Get a Package-Handling or Reshipping Job Offer?
If a work-from-home job offers to pay you to receive packages at home, re-label them, and ship them somewhere else, often overseas, it is almost always a scam, and a dangerous one. These "reshipping" or "package forwarding" jobs use you to launder stolen goods, and you can be left holding the legal and financial risk. ScamVerify™ tracks the work-from-home and job scam category this belongs to: 10,227 complaints in our FTC and FCC data, with 1,725 in the last 90 days. The pitch sounds like easy money for light work. What it actually makes you is a middleman for crime. Before you accept, run the checklist below.
The Checklist: 7 Signs a Reshipping Job Is a Scam
Read the offer against each point. A legitimate job rarely trips these; a reshipping scam usually trips most.
- The job is just receiving and reshipping packages. Real employers do not hire strangers to forward parcels from home.
- You were hired with little or no interview. A fast, easy hire for a vague role is a red flag.
- Packages arrive addressed to other names. Goods sent to names that are not yours are a sign they are stolen or bought with stolen cards.
- You reship to foreign addresses. Forwarding overseas is a classic mule pattern.
- They provide prepaid labels and push speed. Prepaid labels and urgency move stolen goods before anyone catches on.
- Your "salary" is delayed or paid oddly. Many victims are never paid at all, or are paid with a fake check.
- They ask for your ID and bank details up front. This exposes you to identity theft on top of everything else.
When Package Handling Is a Real Job
Legitimate warehouse, fulfillment, and shipping jobs are real, so it helps to see the difference. A real job is at a company's own facility or a known employer, with a normal application, an interview, a verifiable business, and a regular paycheck, not a scheme run out of your living room forwarding parcels to strangers. Real employers do not need you to receive goods in other people's names or reship to addresses abroad. If you want warehouse or logistics work, apply directly to established companies you can look up, and be wary of any "job" whose entire function is moving packages that pass through your home.
Why the Scheme Needs You Specifically
It is worth understanding why the scam relies on ordinary people at all. The goods are bought with stolen credit cards, and stolen cards trigger fraud checks when the shipping address does not match the cardholder or points overseas. So the criminals need a clean, ordinary domestic address, yours, to receive the merchandise first, then forward it on so the trail goes cold. You are not being hired for your skills; you are being hired for your legitimate name, your real address, and your unblemished record, all of which launder the shipment through a step that looks normal. That is also why the "job" burns through workers quickly and disappears: once your address is flagged, they simply recruit the next person. Knowing this makes the offer easy to read for what it is.
Suspicious email?
Paste it to Ava and she explains exactly what you are dealing with and what to do next.
Why You Could Be Committing a Crime
This is the part the pitch never mentions. The packages you receive are typically merchandise bought with stolen credit cards or otherwise obtained through fraud, and by re-labeling and forwarding them you are helping move stolen property, often across borders. That can expose you to serious legal trouble, and at a minimum your name and address become part of a fraud investigation. On the financial side, you are frequently never paid, and if a fake check was involved, you can lose your own money too. You did not set out to break the law, but a reshipping scheme quietly puts you in the middle of one, which is exactly why walking away the moment you spot it matters.
What the Job Listing Hides
These roles are written to sound like ordinary remote work, but each friendly phrase covers something else. Here is the translation.
| The listing says | What it really means |
|---|---|
| "Package inspection or quality control from home" | You receive and forward goods bought with stolen cards |
| "Logistics coordinator, no experience needed" | A quick, unvetted hire because mules are used up fast |
| "Reship to our international partners" | You move stolen property across borders |
| "We provide prepaid shipping labels" | The labels move the goods before anyone catches on |
| "Weekly salary plus bonuses" | Often never paid, or paid with a fake check |
What to Do
- Stop reshipping immediately. Do not send any more packages.
- Do not share ID or bank details, and if you already did, monitor for identity theft.
- Keep records. Save the job offer, messages, and any tracking numbers.
- Let Ava check it. Paste the email, number, or company name, and Ava checks it against the same data we track, then tells you your next step.
- Report it. File at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and contact your local police if you have been receiving and forwarding goods.
For the full set of job and work-from-home scripts, see our guide to job and work-from-home scams. The same world runs the mystery shopper fake-check scam, the move-money money-mule job, the earn-from-your-phone task job, and the remote job offer with no interview.
I Already Reshipped Packages. Now What?
Do not panic, and do not simply disappear either. Stop forwarding anything else right away. Keep every record you have, the offer, the emails, tracking numbers, and any packages still in your possession. Report what happened to the FTC and to your local police, since coming forward voluntarily is far better than being found in the middle of an investigation. If you shared your ID, Social Security number, or bank details, place a free fraud alert with the credit bureaus and watch your accounts. Then tell Ava exactly what happened, and she will map out the specific next steps for your situation.
