An unemployed Portland woman got involved in a reshipping scam when an online job she undertook was uncovered to be a scam. The woman, whose name has been withheld by authorities, had responded to a classified ad for the position of a bookkeeper.
She was interviewed online by a man who said he ran a bookstore in the gulf city of Dubai. He implied he was presently touring US, shopping for books. The man hired her for the advertised position without much ado.
The job started simply for the woman as initially she received college text-books which she was asked to send to addresses in Ohio and Alabama. Oddly, she was never asked to perform any book-keeping functions.
Her suspicions were aroused when suddenly she started receiving laptops instead of books, to ship. This time she was asked to send the goods to Nigeria, giving her further reasons for alarm.
The woman refused, and it was as well. The whole thing being just an elaborate scam, she would have lost the money spent on sending the parcels to Nigeria had she complied.
Investigators tracked down another unsuspecting accomplice to the scam. Apparently, he was given the task of buying laptops and other equipments online, using what turned out to be stolen credit cards and later shipping the same to the Portland woman.
No trace of the fraudsters was uncovered by the investigators as yet.
