Boise Financial Crimes detectives have recently taken reports from victims of "Employment Scams." When people are out of work work and looking for jobs, the possibility of working from home can be appealing. Unfortunately, on legitimate job sites, people can find and apply for jobs that are too good to be true and end up being a scam. The decision to take on these "jobs" ends up costing victims thousands of dollars in losses.
Scams This Week 3/15/22
March 15, 2022
Check Scams: Sometimes scammers will disguise this under the guise of receiving checks from the employer to purchase equipment needed to perform the job. If they want you to deposit a check and send money back, stop. That’s a sign of a fake check scam.
Shipping Scams: Have you been asked to receive packages at your home or business and ship them to someone else? Don’t do it! In “reshipping scams” criminals purchase merchandise with stolen credit cards and need your help to smuggle the goods out of the country. Others may send you counterfeit money orders or checks and ask you to reship them to another address. You’re committing several felonies when you help these criminals. And even if you don’t get caught, it’s likely you’ll lose a lot of money.
Different types of scams sometimes come together to make it easier to defraud you. In a recent scam, the victim was called by "Amazon" and was told that his account was compromised and charges were being made on his Amazon account. The victim allowed remote access to his computer and the scammer was able to see the victim's banking information. The scammer hung up and called back, this time pretending to be a "specialist" from the victim's bank to tell him that the Amazon caller was a scammer. The victim was told he needed to move his money from his current bank account to a different account to protect it while they secure his new bank account.
He sent the money to a suggested bank account, which belonged to a 16-year-old who thought she was getting money for a job she got online from a friend whose account was compromised. Boise Police investigators were able to freeze the account and are now waiting to get the money back.
Find more scam prevention tips on our website.
Contact: Boise Police Media Relations