Reshipping Scam: The Holiday 'Package Job' Trap

Picture a Thursday in late November. Your doorbell camera pings: a box, then another, then a third. You didn't order anything. But your new remote job, the one with the title "delivery operations specialist," told you to expect these.

Your assignment: open them, repack them, slap on the shipping labels your "manager" emailed, and drop them at the post office. Payday is the 15th.

Here's the thing about that job. The boxes are the product. You're the delivery driver for a crime, and the recruiter is counting on you not to notice until it's too late. This is the reshipping scam, and it dresses up nicely for the holidays.

How the reshipping scam actually works

The FTC laid it out in a December 2025 consumer alert, and the mechanics are almost boring:

1. The ad. A work-from-home posting with a title like "delivery operations specialist" or "quality control manager." The FTC says scammers may also claim to be affiliated with well-known companies such as Amazon or FedEx.
2. The "hire." Usually fast. A chat app interview, maybe a text thread, and you're in. No real vetting, because the only qualification they need is a street address.
3. The boxes. Packages show up at your home. The FTC says they're bought with stolen credit card or bank information, and they're often high-value items like new electronics.
4. The reshipping. You repackage everything and send it on to a new address, often overseas, which the FTC notes makes the goods hard to trace.
5. The disappearance. Payday never arrives and the "employer" stops answering.

Notice who's holding the bag. The scammer who ordered with stolen cards is gone. The merchandise is gone. You're the name on the shipping receipts.

Why this one is harder to spot than a fake-check job

I've written about the fake check job scam, and that one has a built-in alarm: at some point a check shows up and someone tells you to send money back. Banks and bank tellers have trained a lot of people to flinch at that.

Reshipping has no alarm. Nobody asks you for money. Nobody sends a check. You actually do the work, you can see the boxes, you can print the labels. It feels like a job because it looks exactly like one. The tell is that nothing about the work makes sense once you ask who benefits from it.

If a company wanted packages sent overseas, it would ship them from a warehouse with a scale and a forklift. It would not pay a stranger to do it from a spare bedroom.

The red flags hiding in plain sight

• The only duties are receive, repackage, forward. The FTC lists this as the core warning sign. That is the entire job description of a scam.
• You never applied. If a "recruiter" found you through a text or a DM, compare it to the Amazon "remote recruitment team" text and the Messenger job offers. Same door, different costume.
• Easy money, no experience. The FTC calls out promises of easy money.
• Training fees or "use your own money for shipping." Per the FTC's job scams guidance, honest employers will never ask you to pay to get a job.
• A famous brand, an unfamous contact method. The job claims to be Amazon or FedEx, but the offer comes from a personal email or a messaging app. Real hiring runs through the company's own career site.
• Overseas or "customer" addresses on every label. You don't need to know why. You just need to know that no normal employer works this way.
• They want your SSN, bank info, or ID early. The FTC warns this can lead to identity theft on top of everything else. Nobody needs your Social Security number to hand you a box.
• Pressure to move fast. Packages are "arriving Friday," so you need to "accept the position today." Real employers are not that eager to hire a stranger with zero screening.

If you already forwarded packages

Take a breath. You were recruited by people who do this for a living, and they chose the scam because it's convincing. You're not stupid. They are criminals.

Here's what to do, in this order:

1. Stop forwarding. Don't send another box, even if the "manager" gets angry or promises payment is coming.
2. Keep everything. Messages, labels, tracking numbers, the job posting, the email address, the names. Screenshot it now before accounts vanish.
3. Report it. The FTC says to report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at uspis.gov/report. Report it yourself and report it fast.
4. If you shared personal information, act fast. The FTC points to IdentityTheft.gov/steps. If you handed over a driver's license, the steps in Gave a Scammer Your Driver's License? apply directly, and the job scam recovery guide covers the rest.
5. Hold the unsent boxes. Don't toss them, don't ship them. Ask the Postal Inspection Service what they want done with them when you report.

How to not become the next package handler

• Look the employer up yourself. The FTC's advice: search the company or person's name with words like "scam," "review," or "complaint," and walk away if others report being scammed.
• Describe the offer to someone you trust. The FTC suggests this too, and it works because reading a job description out loud to a friend makes the weird parts obvious.
• Go to the source. Open Amazon's or FedEx's real careers page in your own browser. If the job isn't there, it's not theirs. You can also check a brand's impersonation page to see how scammers use the name.
• Run the message through a checker. If the offer arrived by text, paste it into the scam text checker before you answer.
• Remember the rule. The FTC's line is the one to tattoo on the inside of your eyelids: reshipping goods is never a real job.

For the bigger picture on how fake employers find people, the job scams hub collects every variation we've covered.

Sources: FTC Consumer Alert, "Can you unbox the signs of a reshipping scam?" (Dec. 3, 2025); FTC Consumer Advice, "Job Scams"; FTC, IdentityTheft.gov.

Scammers hired a stranger to do their shipping so the police would knock on the wrong door, which is the most cowardly org chart I've ever seen.