The FBI and the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) continue to receive numerous complaints from individuals who have become victims to work-at-home scams and warn consumers to use caution when looking for employment online.

These work-at-home schemes are designed by criminals to gain the trust of job seekers in order to take advantage of working relationships to further illegal activity. Most victims are unaware they are engaging in criminal behavior until it is too late.

In many of the scams, victims are often hired to “process payments,” “transfer funds,” or “reship products.” These scams exploit unwitting employees by having them cash fraudulent checks, transfer illegally obtained funds for the criminals, or receive stolen merchandise and ship it to the criminals.

Other scams ask victims to sign up to be a “mystery shopper,” receiving fraudulent checks with instructions to cash the checks and wire funds to “test” a company’s services. Victims are told they will be compensated with a portion of the merchandise of funds.

Job scams also often provide criminals the opportunity to commit identity theft when victims provide their personal information, sometimes even bank account information, to their potential “employer.” The criminal/employer can then use the victim’s information to open credit cards, post online auctions, register Web sites, etc., in the victim’s name to commit additional crimes.

“Don’t get duped by these criminals offering easy money. Remain skeptical of unsolicited job offers that sound too good to be true and report any scams you might encounter,” said Richard Kolko, FBI National Press Office.