A Milwaukee man said he lost $2,400 to a work-at-home job scam in January.
The Milwaukee man told the Better Business Bureau that he posted his resume online and received an email for a position as a gift wrapper and shipper.
He was told by the new employer that FedEx had misplaced his packages. He would need to make a claim with FedEx for missing goods.
“I had to send two money orders of $1,200 each for 2 missing packages and they were supposed to reimburse me on my check,” the man told the BBB. “I lost $2,400.
As unemployment rose and more people sought to work from home during the pandemic, job scams increased, according to a new report from the Better Business Bureau.
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Employment scam complaints were up 27% from 2018 to 2020, according to reports made to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
Job scam instances were the seventh most reported by Wisconsin residents from January through August, said Lisa Schiller, director of investigations and media relations for the Better Business Bureau Serving Wisconsin.
The most common job scams reported in Wisconsin involved reshipping, fake checks and car wraps, Schiller said. The most common report made to Wisconsin’s BBB is online purchase scams.
Extended unemployment benefits expired this week, which could lead to more job scams, Schiller said.
“With the loss of those federal supplements, more people will be searching and applying for jobs, and scam artists are sure to follow,” Schiller said. “With the pandemic far from over, the best antidote to the job scam scourge is educating consumers about this fraud.”
Around 14 million people lost around $2 billion in job scams in 2020, according to the report from the Better Business Bureau.
The victims reported a median financial loss of $1,000. The victims were commonly people aged 25 to 34 and women.
The financial losses are often done through fake checks. The most common jobs offers involving fake checks include mystery shopping, car wrap jobs, nanny or caregiver jobs and small business jobs like photography or painting houses, the BBB said.
Job scams often lead to identity theft, according to the BBB. The job scams often include stealing a job seeker’s personal information like a driver’s license number or social security number.
Here’s what happened to a man in South Milwaukee:
The victim received a job offer from a scammer impersonating a well-known company. The emailed job offer was to be a concept artist.
The victim was sent a $2,400 check to purchase a new work computer. He was instructed by his new employer to send money to the company’s “accredited vendor” through digital payment system Zelle to purchase the computer. The victim didn’t want to do that.
The scammer then told the man to purchase $2,400 in Apple gift cards from a local drug store to send to the “vendor” as payment for the computer.
The store clerk only allowed the man to purchase one, $500 gift card. So then, the new employer said he should go to four more stores as soon as possible. The scammer said “so that we could get this done today.”
The man realized it was a scam. He stopped communicating with the scammers.
Sarah Hauer can be reached at shauer@journalsentinel.com or on Instagram @HauerSarah and Twitter @SarahHauer. Subscribe to her weekly newsletter Be MKE at jsonline.com/bemke.
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