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(MUSIC INTRO) [00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam. [00:00:04] Bob: So when you first called them and said, hey, this payment has bounced, and they said, we're going to send a

check. At that point, did you already realize you were in trouble, or were you somewhere in the middle? [00:00:12] Cathy Junior: Then I was realizing that I was in trouble, started panicking

at that point, 'cause I.. [00:00:18] Bob: Because you've got to pay rent, right? [00:00:20] Cathy Junior: I got to pay rent, right, I don't know how it's going to

happen, and I've got no resources. (MUSIC SEGUE) [00:00:30] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan. You're hired. Those can be two of the most

beautiful words in the English language, especially if you really need the job. But precisely because job seekers can be under so much pressure, they're often vulnerable to

manipulation. Job scams have been around for a while, but they're changing, evolving, and being combined with other kinds of scams. If you're looking for a job online or know

someone who is, you're going to want to listen carefully to today's story. It involves a woman named Cathy Junior in Utah who lives with her husband in an assisted-living facility.

She's really charming. In fact, she considers herself part of the welcoming committee in the place for new residents who sometimes have a hard time adjusting. So let's begin

there. [00:01:22] Cathy Junior: I got remarried and we had my, my husband was falling. We had a condo in downtown Salt Lake, but he wasn't able to walk the short distance down the

hallway to the bathroom by himself, so it's, he was concerned because he'd been falling and we got COVID, we needed to get someplace where if something happened to me, he would be

safe and I would be safe no matter what. [00:01:51] Bob: But Cathy treated the change like a lot of other things in her life, a bit of an adventure. She's got a really positive

attitude. [00:01:58] Cathy Junior: When we started looking at places to go, we had a, a senior advisor that we worked with. And she said, "You two will be a, an addition to any

community, it doesn't matter which one you select. They will be happy to have you." And we thought that was really sweet of her to say. [00:02:18] Bob: And I'm sure

that's 100% true, I can tell from your voice. [00:02:22] Bob: But as anyone who's looked into it knows it's a big financial decision. [00:02:27] Bob: Assisted living is a lot

more expensive than where you were living, right? [00:02:30] Cathy Junior: Oh yes. Yes. We went from $1000 a month to 5000. [00:02:36] Bob: Oh my God. Wow. [00:02:38] Bob: And that's

where our story really begins, because recently Medicaid stopped helping pay for that and the couple had to take out a loan and hire a lawyer to appeal the decision, and while that was going

on, Cathy decided she had to do something to help with the family income. [00:02:54] Bob: How long had you been retired before you decided to go back to work like this? [00:02:58] Cathy

Junior: I retired in January of 2019, so it was about, this was just in 2024, so it had been about five years. [00:03:07] Bob: Yeah, it must be a hard decision to have to go back to work

after five years. [00:03:11] Cathy Junior: Yeah. I was enjoying retirement. [00:03:14] Bob: So she fixed up her resume and started looking for a job. But let's back up just a bit and

hear about that resume. Cathy has led quite a life. She was in the Army Reserve for 14 years. [00:03:27] Bob: Wow, what did you do? [00:03:29] Cathy Junior: I was an administrator.

[00:03:31] Bob: And where were you? [00:03:32] Cathy Junior: I did all kinds of things for many different outfits. I, I was in the, on a unit that was in the, in Kalispell, Montana, it was a

water supply unit. And so I kept up their regs to make sure they got paid, those kinds of wonderful things. And then I moved to Colorado and that was an infantry unit, so I had to teach

other ladies who couldn't, at that time, be in the regular infantry, the things that, that they needed to know because they were being moved to administrators. And, and then I got moved

to, back to Montana. My ex-husband was military so we moved a little bit. I got back to Montana because he went to Korea, and I was with that army supply air... the water supply unit there

in uh Kalispell. And then we went to Germany. I was on a brief hold in Germany because I, they didn't have a, an Army Reserve unit over there. It was all active Army. So went, I had to

wait until I came back to Kalispell to go back to the Reserves. And then I did uh, Reserve, I was a Reserve Technician in California right on the beach on, on Camp Pendleton. Brand new

building, it was kinda fun. [00:04:50] Bob: You saw a lot in the Army Reserves, didn't you? [00:04:53] Cathy Junior: Yeah, I did. [00:04:55] Bob: Ah, that's great. [00:04:56] Cathy

Junior: The unit that I was in in California was a light amphibious recovery crafts. [00:05:01] Bob: Oh wow. [00:05:02] Cathy Junior: We had vehicles that you could drive a truck up on and

then they'd go out in the ocean. [00:05:06] Bob: Wow. [00:05:08] Cathy Junior: So we uh, we did all kinds of things. [00:05:11] Bob: I'm sure you're very proud of the time you

worked there. [00:05:13] Cathy Junior: Yes, yes, I, I loved the Army Reserves. [00:05:17] Bob: Once she left the Army Reserves, she had several more important jobs after that. [00:05:23]

Cathy Junior: Well I, I was a wife and a mother, when I got divorced the second time, I needed something more substantial. I had studied as an electronic engineer. I wasn't able to

finish, but I was able to get enough so I could provide for my family, and I started working as a, an R&D tech for a company doing, process equipment for the semiconductor industry. So

I've done a lot of different things. [00:05:55] Bob: So when she decides to come out of retirement, Cathy has plenty of experience and skills to make her employable. But she really

wants to work from home. So like many people do these days, she puts her resume online, and almost immediately she gets a bite. [00:06:11] Cathy Junior: And I had this company call me, and

they said they thought that I'd be a great candidate for their, the work that they needed done. They made sense. I checked out Better Business Bureau; it looked like they were legit. So

I said yes. [00:06:27] Bob: What was the company called? [00:06:29] Cathy Junior: PNP Ship. [00:06:30] Bob: And did they have some kind of job interview with you or something? [00:06:33]

Cathy Junior: Yes. They called me, the shipping manager called me and she said, "I think from your resume you look like you're a perfect fit." [00:06:44] Bob: The job sounds

perfect for someone who wants to work from home. [00:06:48] Cathy Junior: And all I had to do was acknowledge that I'd received packages and then put pictures of what they needed on the

portal, post them into the portal, and then the customer would take those pictures, look at them, see if it was what they wanted, because supposedly these were going to customers that were

overseas, you know, expats and whatever that wanted American products. Repackage them and get them ready and then I'd get a label that the, the customer supposedly had paid for to get

them off to UPS, FedEx, whatever the customer wanted, it's however they wanted to ship it. And so that's, that was a pretty simple process. [00:07:33] Bob: Was there some kind of

training when you got hired? How did that work? [00:07:36] Cathy Junior: There is training, it's done online. They have a presentation that they put together, and it just tells you what

you need to do with the package, how to process it, what needs to happen, and, and then what the backend process was. And that was all I needed to do was get those shipped out and get them

timely. They wanted them within just a few, like within an hour, or two hours, something like that, and that, we were able to do that. [00:08:06] Bob: Speed is key, she's told, but the

pay is pretty good. [00:08:11] Cathy Junior: I was supposed to get a base salary whether I did anything or not because they, they said you, the base salary I think was 1800 and then you got

$40 a package for getting them shipped out timely. If you had to go pick some up, which I did pick some up, you got an extra bonus for that. [00:08:32] Bob: You got a bonus for doing it

quickly, too, right? [00:08:35] Cathy Junior: Yeah. [00:08:36] Bob: The opportunity sounds ideal, so Cathy accepts the job and starts right away. There's an online portal she uses to

log her work, to message with bosses. It's all very organized. [00:08:49] Cathy Junior: You logged in. All you had to log in was the pictures. It was easier than that even. The serial

numbers were on the pictures, that was part of what we had to take. The, the pictures of, of the items and what they were. Some of them were just bracelets or little, there was one that was

just a little gold bar, all kinds of things. Some of it was really small, some of it was larger. But for the most part, it was an easy job. [00:09:17] Bob: But it was a, was a professional

looking website that said PNP Ship on the top, right, and you had to log in or something like that? [00:09:24] Cathy Junior: You had to log in. They had mail on there where you could check

with people and see what's going on, you know, they had a message board, and they were still recruiting others. And, and they had the links on that too, to the training, so you just

clicked on a link and you got the training. And everything was there. If you needed to message the management, everything was there. They did have, I had phone calls from the incoming

shipping manager, the outgoing shipping manager, and the shipping manager overall. Those three people I had phone numbers for. [00:10:04] Bob: Remember the bit about getting a bonus for

delivering packages quickly? Well Cathy and her husband are well suited to do that. [00:10:12] Cathy Junior: We, we both have wheelchairs, so we'd just put both of them, put the

packages on our wheelchairs and off we'd go. [00:10:20] Bob: And you'd motor on down to the post office, the two of you? [00:10:23] Cathy Junior: Yeah, the post office, sometimes

it was the UPS store, sometimes it was FedEx, and they're all close by. We live in a downtown area where everything is close. So... [00:10:34] Bob: Well that's nice. [00:10:34]

Cathy Junior: Yeah, it was not more than about four or five blocks to get to anywhere. So we did that, and that, that went by fine. [00:10:42] Bob: They probably got to know you at the post

office, right? [00:10:44] Cathy Junior: Yeah, yeah, the UPS guy, he wasn't too thrilled 'cause his, his room is not ADA compatible, and we'd have to leave the wheelchairs

outside and then I'd go inside and do what I needed to do and then come back. Luckily at that point I was off oxygen. So I was able to take things in and out. [00:11:05] Bob: Where were

all those packages going? [00:11:08] Cathy Junior: They were going everywhere; New York, California, they were going all over the place. [00:11:14] Bob: But all in the US? [00:11:15] Cathy

Junior: Yes, but they had different names on them. The, the names um, were definitely not American. [00:11:23] Bob: But they didn't ask you to send something overseas to another

continent or anything. [00:11:27] Cathy Junior: No. Uh-uh. No, supposedly they were people who took them to the customs. [00:11:34] Bob: For a couple of weeks, Cathy and her husband were

happily scootering back and forth to the post office and UPS and FedEx. [00:11:42] Cathy Junior: Oh, we thought it was great because I mean we could do it together, we were having fun with

it. It was keeping us distracted. [00:11:49] Bob: In fact, she's doing so well that Cathy is offered a promotion of sorts -- quickly. [00:11:56] Cathy Junior: Yeah, I, I'd been

probably working for them two, maybe, yeah, no maybe it was 3 weeks, and they called me and said, one of the, one other person called me and said she was over the purchasing, I was doing a

great job, and she wanted to increase my responsibilities and start me purchasing things. [00:12:17] Bob: They want her to start purchasing things. Her job is now going to involve going to

stores and buying items like iPads and shipping them off to clients. But there's a problem. She'll have to use her own credit card to buy them, but her card is pretty maxed out. No

problem, the boss says, they'll pay off the balance for her. [00:12:37] Bob: They paid off your credit card, wow. That's, how did that work? [00:12:40] Cathy Junior: They had me

draw the money from a, an account, just draw it from their account, oh, to pay my credit card. And it went fine. And so... [00:12:50] Bob: So they had you log into some kind of bank website

and move money from their account into your account? [00:12:54] Cathy Junior: Yeah. [00:12:56] Bob: Got it. [00:12:57] Bob: So she starts acting like a purchasing agent too. [00:13:02] Bob:

What did you pick up? [00:13:03] Cathy Junior: I picked up, the first item was a watch, an Apple watch. They were mostly all Apple things. And I started small because that's what I

could afford. And then they got bigger as I went on, but I got the, the first item, I got it shopped, I, I went out to Apple store. Luckily, it's just down here at the mall, it's a

couple of blocks away. I went and got it, picked it up, sent them the receipt information. They sent me the packing list, or the packing label. I got it back, boxed up and put away, sent

off, and then I got them, supposedly got the money from the bank, which was fine. You know how you can set up a payment, an auto payment from a bank. I just, since the bank was already set

up, made up the payment and that's what she told me to do. [00:13:56] Bob: But within a few days this seemingly ideal job starts to unravel. The trouble first becomes obvious around

those credit card payments. [00:14:07] Cathy Junior: It was about three days. And things started bouncing and they're bouncing back. First one, my payment for the... I didn't

notice when my payment, the original thing from the bank bounced, but when the first payment started bouncing, they said it was fraud. I'm like, wait a minute. When I called them on the

part where is said, where, where they were bouncing, or these purchases were bouncing, they said, "Well send you a check," or "The bank has, has locked that account. They

sent it to fraud. We'll send you a check, we'll send it out next day." I never got it. [00:14:47] Bob: So Cathy's original balance, the debt is restored on her credit

card, and she's got all those purchases on her card too. [00:14:55] Cathy Junior: These, $1500 apiece, and so I'm like, uh-oh. And they had made an $800 payment on my account,

that's, that's when they paid it off, and then... [00:15:07] Bob: And that bounced too, so now you've got a huge credit card bill. [00:15:10] Cathy Junior: Yeah, yeah,

exactly. [00:15:12] Bob: So Cathy is now owed money for all those trips to the post office. She's got a big balance on her credit card, and then the shipping company ships out.

[00:15:24] Bob: So when you, when they first, when you first called them and said, hey, this payment has bounced, and they said, we're going to send a check. At that point, did you

already realize you were in trouble, or were you somewhere in the middle? [00:15:33] Cathy Junior: No, I, when, then I was realizing that I was in trouble, started panicking at that point,

'cause I, you know... [00:15:39] Bob: Well because you've got to pay rent, right? [00:15:40] Cathy Junior: I got to pay rent, right, I don't know how it's going to

happen, and I've got no resources. [00:15:46] Bob: The job was fake. The online portal was fake. The credit card payment was, in effect, fake, but the pain for Cathy is quite real.

[00:15:57] Bob: Oh man. Wow. So all, all told, what was the amount that was stolen from you? [00:16:02] Cathy Junior: About $9000 all told, because of the 4500 in the credit card and then

the payment that I never got. [00:16:11] Bob: The salary you were missing was about 4500 also? [00:16:13] Cathy Junior: Yes. [00:16:15] Bob: Wow. Yeah, and of course this is a, a

month's worth of distraction and heartbreak, right? [00:16:21] Cathy Junior: Yes. [00:16:23] Bob: Remember, Cathy took this job because she needed the money to pay her bills because

they pay a lot in rent at their assisted-living facility, and Medicaid wasn't helping with the payments anymore. And now she has no pay and a huge credit card bill. But this story has a

happy ending because right about then their Medicaid appeal comes through. So Cathy no longer needs to work. [00:16:48] Cathy Junior: Yes. My husband got, finally got fighting and fighting

for them to get Medicaid back on for him because he needed it. I was enjoying retirement and I'm now enjoying retirement again. [00:17:04] Bob: Cathy can be retired again. So now when

she and her husband scooter to the mall or to the post office, they're doing it for themselves. But she wanted to come forward and tell her story because she believes that's the

only way to help others avoid becoming victims to this same kind of crime. [00:17:22] Cathy Junior: I feel like I have a lot on, an intelligent person and I don't fool easy, and yet I

got sucked in. And so they can, it doesn't matter how smart or anything you think you are, that you get scammed, and you have to be careful. Everybody has to be on their guard every

day, all the time. And it just is a, for people who don't have the wherewithal, I have a lot of electronic background. I have, I have a lot of things that I understand that most people

don't understand, and they got me anyway. [00:17:59] Bob: Another thing that just strikes me about your story, so I'm picturing you and your husband, by the way this is frankly

adorable, the two of you on your way to the post office together, and but then at the UPS Store... [00:18:09] Cathy Junior: We have had so many people who you say we're just,

you're cuter than you think. (laughter) [00:18:16] Bob: I am sure you are cuter than you think. [00:18:20] Cathy Junior: We are. [00:18:23] Bob: It sounds like you love your husband

very much. [00:18:25] Cathy Junior: He is pretty special, yeah. [00:18:27] Bob: But I'm picturing you, well motoring over to the UPS store where you have to get out of your scooter

because it's not handicapped accessible and you've got to walk with these packages, right? [00:18:37] Cathy Junior: Yeah, one a time. I don't, I don't, I don't try

to kill myself, but that's the thing... [00:18:43] Bob: But I'm picturing, I, I don't know how someone could hear your story and not think this: What kind of creep, criminal

en--, encourages someone like yourself to have to get out of your wheelchair or scooter, climb upstairs with packages. That just seems so cruel to me what they were having you do. [00:18:59]

Bob: So I asked Cathy, would she ever look online for a job again? [00:19:05] Cathy Junior: Only if I know the company, like the company that my son and daughter-in-law work for, I tried to

work with them, but they didn't have any openings at the time I was looking. Now if they had openings, I might consider working with them. [00:19:19] Bob: Got it, yeah. Yeah, that

makes sense, of course. [00:19:20] Cathy Junior: But I don't need to now. [00:19:23] Bob: Cathy did fill out a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. [00:19:27] Cathy Junior: I

filled out the online form. When I did that, they said they, they would inform all law enforcement that they needed to. [00:19:34] Bob: And how did she feel about the whole experience now?

[00:19:38] Cathy Junior: To say that I, I feel like I got a little egg on my face. You wash it off, you move on. [00:19:45] Bob: I like that. [00:19:46] Cathy Junior: But I, I just, I

don't want it to happen to anybody else. I, that's why here in this facility we're in, that's what I do. I'm an ambassador in this facility. Because I care about

people and I want to help where I can. And I, my job as an ambassador is to help new people feel like they're part of the community. [00:20:09] Bob: That's really nice. I'm

sure it's really hard when people move in there, right? [00:20:12] Cathy Junior: Well especially since man--, many of them are moving from their home they've had for 60 years.

[00:20:19] Bob: Yeah. [00:20:20] Cathy Junior: It's hard. It's hard. [00:20:21] Bob: Yeah. [00:20:22] Cathy Junior: And, and so it's my job to help them. [00:20:25] Bob: Well

that's really lovely. I, I'm sure you also look around and many of these people could be vulnerable to all sorts of scams, right? [00:20:30] Cathy Junior: Yep, that's why I

watch their electronics. [00:20:34] Bob: Good for you. That's great. You're doing quite a service there. [00:20:38] Bob: We should all be so lucky to have someone like Cathy

looking out for us when we're new in a place. Cathy was the victim of a reshipping scam. Now they've been around for a long time, but as I'm sure you can tell from her story,

these scams have evolved dramatically. Even to the point where these criminals were able to make it look like they made payments on Cathy's credit card. To talk more about the evolution

of reshipping scams, we have Melissa Lanning here. She is Executive Director of the Better Business Bureau Institute of Marketplace Trust. She was pretty disturbed by Cathy's story.

[00:21:14] Melissa Lanning: This is so unfortunate when there are people who need to find a job, and they're, you know, searching to find a, a solution. In, in this case, you know,

Cathy needs a job, and she's looking to do some work to support her family and it's very, very unfortunate that she can't just do that and find a job and do that safely

instead of being targeted by criminals. [00:21:37] Bob: It's such a hard thing for job seekers because we tell people not to share anything about themselves, but when you put a resume

online, of course you have to share things about yourself with the world, and that makes people who are looking for jobs so much more vulnerable, I think. [00:21:49] Melissa Lanning: Yeah.

Yeah, you're right, because it, you expect to share that information with a, a potential employer. That makes perfect sense, so but... [00:21:56] Bob: And also when, when you're

looking for a job and someone offers you one, it's exciting, right? I mean like this is what I'm waiting for. So they're so, in such a vulnerable situation when you're

hunt--, hunting for a job, I think. [00:22:05] Melissa Lanning: Yes, and if you're, and here's the other thing. If you're, you really, really need that job and you've

been waiting for this, this opportunity, sometimes I think, you know, people aren't hearing the red flags as much because they so need this job to come through. They just hope so much

that this is, this is going to answer what the, you know, what they really want. They wanted the job to pay their rent and to get their family in a better situation. So, so yeah. I think

that that emotional roller coaster is really hard, you know, because you want to believe so bad that this is, this is going to answer and adjust the needs of your family. So yes. [00:22:39]

Bob: An emotional roller coaster. Looking for a job is certainly that. [00:22:45] Melissa Lanning: I would say, one thing I would say about this is that she shouldn't ever beat herself

up over this. Instances like this are being reported to the, to the BBB constantly. We're seeing this a lot. Job scams have been on the top three risky scams in our research for the,

since the pandemic essentially, so we've seen this particular scam type continue to rise and continue to be an issue. I think it really blew up during the, the pandemic because everyone

needed those work from home jobs. But it continues and now the promise of working from home is one of the things that these scammers are really promising people and that's one of the

things they use to try to attract people to get involved with them and, and to, you know, basically get a job with them, which we all know is not a, a real job. So it's unfortunate.

[00:23:33] Bob: The work from home trend was accelerated dramatically during COVID 19 and that has created a big opening for criminals. [00:23:41] Melissa Lanning: You know maybe in the past

that these, these work from home jobs were, it was a red flag, but it's not as easy to detect that red flag anymore to your point because there's more and more companies that are

offering remote positions. And so I definitely see that that is the number one tactic we see in our research with these fake job listings is this stay-at-home, working remote, that's

like the number one thing. And in our research we asked people what was the number one motivation for them to respond to the offer that they were seeing whether the person engaged with them

and reached out to them, or whether they saw it listed somewhere. And the number one reason was I really wanted to work remotely. And, and so that has become a huge, probably number one

tactic for scammers that are perpetrating these types of scams. [00:24:28] Bob: Melissa says job scams continue to evolve, to the point where you might get a job offer that lists a real

company and even a real job opening, but it's not a real offer. I'll let her explain. [00:24:41] Melissa Lanning: We are seeing scammers impersonate real businesses, and that is

really unfortunate. So one of the things that we suggest is, yes, you want to make sure that the business that's offering you this job is legitimate, but you also need to track down the

actual position, the actual job description and find it on the organization, the company or organization's website, and make sure that it's actually listed there. You have to

connect the dots. So even though you get a job offer from a company that really does exist, unfortunately today, these scams have become more and more complex and sophisticated and so for

that it means now that we need to track down the address sometimes. We need to check the URL that they're providing of the job description and make sure that it's on a real

website, not a fake website, and that it's actually a real job description that's been put out there by the company. So unfortunately, I see this situation a lot in our scam

reports. [00:25:36] Bob: I mean the old advice would be, you know, google the name of the company. Make sure it's legitimate, but if, in some of these cases as you've described, if

you do that you're going to find a legitimate company because these people are impersonating real companies, and maybe even impersonating job listings. And so I think it's,

it's really a hard thing for job seekers right now to sort through all of these various permutations of what, what could be a crime and what, what is a red flag and what's normal.

[00:25:58] Melissa Lanning: I agree, it's, it, one thing about scammers is they're constantly evolving and changing their tactics because as people, as we get more consumer

education out there and people learn what those red flags are, then the scammers are sort of changing the game on us, and so it's a constant evolution, all of these different scam

types. And so yeah, it, it is harder and it, it, when you are searching for a job, you do, you have to take that extra couple of steps to do some additional research to just make sure that

this is a real person and that this is a real job offer. [00:26:31] Bob: And perhaps most alarming, job scams are also being combined with other scams like crypto scams. [00:26:39] Melissa

Lanning: One thing that we've just recently seen in the last year is now these scammers are offering to pay people on crypto platforms. So that's another sort of iteration of this

job scam, if you will, where now you're, you're doing online work for people. They say we're going to pay you on this crypto platform and now you need to start, you have to

actually put money into an account in order to get paid on this platform. And what we've, we've heard through our reports is, you know, they go in to download the pay that they are

owed for doing this work, and that the platform tells them they need to put in more money. And then they just, we've seen some folks, it takes a little while for them to realize this

is a scam. They're never getting paid, basically they're the ones that are putting their money in and they end up losing money that way too, so that's a whole other iteration

of job scams now that we're just now seeing. [00:27:29] Bob: Gosh, that's terrible. It's like they're combining various scams and, and you know, layering in the narrative

so if it's, the question I was going to ask you until you threw that one on me which is also really unnerving, is I mean in the end what happened to, to Cathy was a reshipping scam.

Reshipping scams are, you know, as old as the internet. The cover story is just more elaborate. But now you, you might get involved in this and it end up being a cryptography scam, not a

reshipping scam, or not a job listing scam. They're all sort of combined together, right? [00:27:55] Melissa Lanning: They are. And, and you're right they're taking all of

these different tactics that are working, and they're just changing the game and they're sort of adding in. [00:28:04] Bob: And it's important to understand just how

relentless these criminals can be. [00:28:09] Melissa Lanning: Overall, I think scammers are willing to spend more time with, with their targets, you know, and so job scams have always

involved more work, right, where, whereas an online shopping scam is just they're sending out emails, people are paying money for something they won't get, it's 100 bucks, but

for this kind of scam, they're willing to put in the extra work to, to do an interview with the person and, and sometimes they're giving them work. Like I said, that online job

where they're asking them, or reshipping in this case, you know let's, let's have them do some work and actually reship packages. And so in the end, they're willing to do

a little bit more work because they're getting, you know, they're able to rob that person of more money at the end of the day. And in that process, they've built trust with

this person who, because this person thinks they're truly employed by a real employer, and so the it, you know, they’re taking that time to build trust with that person and at the end

of the day the payoff for them is, is higher. So it's really unfortunate. [00:29:04] Bob: So as she described it to me, they actually paid, did pay off, or I guess it's her, she

had a balance on her credit card and she couldn't buy things from them unless she paid it down, and they actually did pay off part of her credit card or instructed her to use a website

to move money around which I'm sure was hacked. And then the payment ended up being reversed by the bank a few days later, but it, it sure appeared to her like she had received money

from them, which makes it so much more believable as a crime. [00:29:27] Melissa Lanning: Yes, exactly, it's like when you get that fake official check in the mail and it's all, it

looks official. It feels legitimate, right, this whole situation. It's like, again, it's about that building the trust with that person. [00:29:39] Bob: And all the time, you know

like the time they're willing to spend is, is remarkable really. [00:29:42] Melissa Lanning: Yes. Yes, it is. And the other thing I wanted to mention too on this is the payment scheme

also shifts constantly. So um, job scams used to be very much connected to fake check scams. And they still are, but the way that works is the person would do the work, or start the work,

and when they, before, sometimes before they even started the work they would receive a very official looking check for the remote position, being told that they were either getting training

or they were, needed to buy office equipment, home office equipment to, to be able to do the job. And they're told to go to their bank, put the check in the account, and then transfer,

immediately transfer money to another account to help cover the costs of this. Now that's an overpayment scam. What, what the person doesn't realize is that that check is bad and

they don't realize that for another week, and in the meantime, they've transferred their own funds to another account. And so now you're seeing this happen with digital

payment apps instead of, you know, it depends. They're, they're transferring the money in different ways, and in this case, I see that Cathy has, has started working on her credit

card. She's been putting things on and they're promising to pay it off, and they probably sent that fake check. She doesn't realize it, so she's, she's got to pay

her credit card bill even though she's not getting paid and reimbursed. So they're also changing that up, that situation a whole lot too. [00:31:02] Bob: Let's be really clear

about one thing, there aren't jobs where you receive packages from someone and mail them on to someone else. That's the biggest red flag of all. That's a reshipping scam. But

here are a few other warning signs to watch for. [00:31:17] Melissa Lanning: So know the red flags, first of all on, on things that are, are common red flags. And so if this job offer seems

too good to be true, just pause and do some, do some research as, as we mentioned earlier. Just some examples of other red flags; if they're reaching out to you and then you're,

you know you've been, you're on a third-party platform, for example, and that's how they found you, and now they want to talk to you on WhatsApp. So they want to switch

communications to another platform; that's a huge red flag. So know that that right there is something you need to stop and really spend some time doing research. If they're

interviewing you and it's, sometimes they're not even interviewing you. They're barely asking some questions and suddenly you got the job. So if you get the job really fast,

that's a huge red flag as well. There are some scammers that'll take the time to do research on Zoom. There is others that do text, believe it or not, there's text interviews

that they do, so they do it on the Signal App, and they just text back and forth, so that's a huge red flag that's a very common thing. The other thing, like I said earlier, is, is

really track down an official job description. Make sure that they send it to you. Make sure you track it down to a real website to make sure it's the, a legitimate business, number

one, and do background on the business. So make sure it's a real business, but like I said, there's impersonations as well. So if, if they're impersonating a well-known

business, then make sure you find that job um, listing on that business's website. It should be listed somewhere. And so that's a, that's another thing employers need to think

about is to make sure that they always have a, a specific place on their website where they're putting all their job descriptions so people can actually find them. Another red flag I

wanted to mention is very vague job descriptions. So if they're not asking for a lot of skills, the reason scammers do this is they can target so many more people. The more skills they

put into a job description, the fewer people are going to want to respond, right? [00:33:16] Bob: Of course criminals now know that people have been warned about reshipping scams, so they

will often avoid using the word "shipping" in the job description. [00:33:27] Melissa Lanning: Secret shoppers is another really great example that we see a lot. Basically somebody

is going out to do secret shopping on websites for people to find out, find items and, and sort of determine how the experience was. This is the kind of thing anyone can really do with a

little bit of guidance, and so these are just examples of the kinds of really popular types of jobs that the scammers are putting out there. [00:33:50] Bob: So if you were worried that you

or someone you know might be in the middle of a scam like this right now, what should you do? [00:33:57] Melissa Lanning: Yeah, so what they want to do is, is report it right away. They want

to stop engaging with the scammer immediately, and they want to collect as much information about the situation as they can. You know for us, we love to, for example, get URLs of where this

was advertised so that we can share this with people. Ultimately what they need to do is report the scam, and if they've lost money, we can't, it's very hard to get money

back after you’ve been scammed, but if, if you report it, at least, you know, you're helping to protect other people, and you're, you know making sure that law enforcement's

aware. Also, for, for um, employment scams particularly, you really need to check your bank accounts because so, so another aspect we didn't get into here is not just the stealing of

the money, but if you fill out an, an application and you've provided them with personal information, the other thing that's really important for you to do is to just make sure

you've buttoned everything down. You check your bank accounts, you check to make sure, go in and make sure you freeze your credit reports for example, right away. If you've given

out, so treat this very much like you've already experienced an identity theft because they have your information. So you want to take all the necessary steps to protect yourself, um,

in the future. So it's not just about losing money, it's also making sure that that personal information doesn't get, get used to impact you later on. [00:35:17] Bob:

That's a really important point. Even if you never end up reshipping or buying anything, for a criminal like this, if you signed up for an interview or exchanged information in any way,

you might become a victim of identity theft. So be alert for that. So I asked Melissa, are these online job platforms doing enough to fight fraud? [00:35:38] Melissa Lanning: Yeah,

that's a tough question. I, I think definitely, I know that they're, they're doing work to try to adjust this. Have they done enough? I, I don't know. I don't know

if they have. I, I know that we've reached out and talked to some of them, um, and shared our, our research so that they understand the impact of this. And so I, I don't know if

they have. I, I think all, more can always be done. I would love... here's the thing that there's a lot of education that's happening, but we can't solve this, this, this

problem only with consumer education because people are hearing so much about scams and there's so much information out there, and we have to keep doing that, but there's got to

be other solutions, there's got to be technical solutions where we stop these before they, they target people. And so I do think more needs to be done to try to keep these scammers off

these platforms. So I would say, I know there's things that they're trying to do. Do we need them to do more? Yes, I, I think they definitely. [00:36:36] Bob: And, and a related

question, so if you are a job seeker and you see something that's sort of obviously a crime, you're not going to go to the police with that, but what, what should you do to report

that to someone who will, you know, do something about it? [00:36:47] Melissa Lanning: Yeah, I mean even, I think that's a really important point, Bob. Even if you haven't lost

money or personal information to this thing. If, if you've only just seen it out there and you know it's a scam, report it to either, you know, BBB Scam Tracker is a great place to

report. We share all of our, our data with FTC. You can report it directly to FTC. You can also report it to IC3, which is the FBI. So if you see those, those instances out there, take,

take it, just take a second and report it. Again, BBB will publish that and put it up on our platform so that it's available when people go in and search for, you know, for scams. The

more we can do to highlight this for everyone, um, and pass on that information, the more we'll protect more people in the future from, from all types of scams, but specifically for job

scams. [00:37:35] Bob: You know I mean I think our listeners love homework, so if someone sees a, a really suspicious ad, they can report it to the BBB. [00:37:42] Melissa Lanning: Yes,

please do so. [00:37:43] Bob: I mean, really mechanically, how do they do that? [00:37:46] Melissa Lanning: So you go to BBB.org/scamtracker. And you would just fill out a form. There's

a very simple form, um, basically it says, report a scam, right on the platform. You open it up and it will ask you some questions about what you saw. So if, if you didn't lose money,

if you're reporting it on behalf of someone else, it allows you to do that. It doesn't, like I said, it doesn't have to be an experience that actually happened to you, but you

can go through all the questions. And then and you can even upload a picture of it, so that we have that as well in the database. [00:38:16] Bob: Given all the reports of scams that Melissa

sees, she's got a really important message for Perfect Scam listeners. [00:38:23] Melissa Lanning: The only, only other thing I want to mention to folks is just, again, if this happens

to you, don't beat yourself up. This is happening to a lot of people. These are criminals that are, are very well trained, these scams are incredible sophisticated, and so please

report the scam, but also be kind to yourself. This is like I said, this isn't something that's your fault, and this is something that we also, the other thing I will just

mentioned, Bob. We have a Scam Survival Toolkit on our website, so if you go to Scam Tracker, it's right on the top right-hand corner. If this happens to you, you can go to that

Survival Toolkit, tell it what happened, and it will give you a tailored description of what you need to do next based on how you've paid, where you were targeted, whether or not

you're, you're having a hard time sleeping, so it will provide mental health resources and so forth. So it's, it's a really great resource for folks who are really

struggling after they've been targeted by a scammer, and I would encourage folks to check that out as well. (MUSIC SEGUE) [00:39:19] Bob: For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

(MUSIC SEGUE) [00:39:32] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you are not alone. Call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can

provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next. Our email address at The Perfect Scam is: [email protected], and we want to hear from you. If you've been

the victim of a scam or you know someone who has, and you'd like us to tell their story, write to us. That address again is: [email protected]. Thank you to our team of

scambusters; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; Researcher, Becky Dodson; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; and our Audio Engineer and Sound Designer, Julio Gonzalez. Be sure to find us on

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan. (MUSIC OUTRO) _END OF TRANSCRIPT_