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The Re-shipping Scam

Introduction

The re-shipping scam is designed to trick individuals or small businesses into shipping goods to countries (generally West African or Asian) with weak legal systems. The goods themselves are most often paid for with stolen or fake credit cards and the re-shippers (unbeknownst to them) assume the brunt of the legal risks.

There are several versions of this scam and I list the main ones and the various variants below:

The Nigerian Scam

This is effectively a variant of the Dating Site Romance Scam where the fraudsters have large teams of people who are actively trawling chat and matchmaking sites to generally recruit single western women. The grooming process can take a long time as the mark's confidence is gained. Then, when a trusting relationship has been gained the criminal proposens to the woman and promises to marry her when he comes to her home country in the very near future. Arrangements are made, but the fraudster then makes some pretense and asks the permission of his 'future bride' to ship some goods he is going to buy before he comes. As soon as the woman accepts the fraudster uses several fraudulent or stolen credit cards to buy goods at several internet sites simultaneously. Often the correct billing address of the cardholder is used, but the shipping address is the home of the unsuspecting 'future bride'. Just before the packages are due to arrive the fraudster invents some excuse (sick family member, accident etc) to explain why he cannot come and he tells his 'wife' that he urgently needs to pick-up all the packages. Since the mark has not spent any money and she is in posession of the goods she sees nothing wrong in this and as she loves the man she readily agrees. Soon after, she receives a package delivery company package with pre-printed labels that she has agreed to apply to the boxes that she already has at home. The next day, all boxes are picked up by the package delivery company and shipped to the criminal's real address (in Nigeria or elsewhere). At this point all communication between the woman and the fraudster ceases after all her suefulness to her 'prospective husband' is now entirely over.

In many instances of this scam the fraudsters were even able to use the mark's own address to create accounts with the package deliverer, based on the woman's name and address. A week or two after the packages are delivered it is not uncommon for the woman to receive a huge freight bill from the shipping company. Unwittingly therefore the woman has been conned into becoming a criminal re-shipper and to help the fraudster with his criminal activities.

The Eastern European version

This is a variant of the Employment Scam where the fraudster poses as a representative of a growing European company trying to establish a presence in the UK/US (or wherever). Classified advertising can be used to make contact or contact can be made through on-line job noticeboards. The fraudster agrees to pay over the odds for the job applicant's time. The fraudster explains that the job is to buy goods in the mark's home country which then must be shipped to Eastern Europe.

The remainder of the scam is very similar to the Nigerian Version. Though sometimes, in this version of the scam, hen the criminals send the labels to be applied to the boxes, they also include a fake cheque, as payment for the re-shipper's services. The cheque is duly paid into the mark's bank, but by the time it bounces, unpaid, the boxes have been picked up already and all communication between fraudster and re-shipper has stopped.

The Chinese version

This is another variant of the Employment Scam where the fraudsters recruit people through spam email. Again the criminals pose as the representative of a growing Chinese company trying to establish a presence in the U.S. or Europe and agree to pay an agent whatever the unsuspecting victim is looking to make, and more. An example of one of their recruiting emails is given below:

Scam email starts:

From: chiang@hotmail.com
Subject: Employment Opportunity
Date: 27 July 2006 18:29:26 BDT
To: dyfed7@email.com
Reply-To: chiang@thotmail.com

Dear Sir/Madam

Let me introduce myself. I am Mr Chiang Chiao-Xin manager of Beijing Engineering Corp. We are a company dealing in mechanical equipment, hardware and minerals, electrical products, Medical & Chemicals, light industrial products and office equipment, and export into the Canada/America and Europe. We are searching for representatives who can help us establish a medium of getting to our costumers in the Canada/America and Europe as well as making payments through you to us.

lease if you are interested in transacting business with us we will be glad. Please contact us for more information. Subject to your satisfaction you will be given the opportunity to negotiate your mode of which we will pay for your services as our representative in Canada/America and Europe. Please if you are interested forward to us your phone number/fax and your full contact addresses.

Thank you in advance.

Mr Chiang Chiao-Xin
Managing Director
Beijing Engineering Corp.

Scam email ends

Anyone responding to such an email is suckered into becoming a re-shipper for fraudulent transactions and the remainder of the scam works as in the Nigerian Scam and the Eastern European variant.