Work-from-home Check packages and resend them to address pro

Dear All,

I've been scammed!

Not so proud to say that, but had a bad luck of applying for a genuine-lookalike-job recently.

I saw an advertisement in the job portal for english speaking jobs in Germany and having been unemployed for more than 4 months and out of desperation, I applied for the role "Manager Sales Management International" by the company Alpha Logistiks. email: [email protected]

After i send the application via email, they asked me to send a proof of ID. I did that too, and in the mean time they started sending me packages to check for scratches and dents that might have occured during the transportation. But this raised questions and I contacted the parent company Alpha Logistik based in Denmark to get and answer about this been carried out with their knowledge or not. I got a reply saying "it is fraud".

Hence i asked the person via email to stop sending any more packages to me. And in the mean time i told them i will be sending these packages back to the company where it came to me from (for example - an ipad from T-mobile, a razor from philips etc). Having had confirmed that this is a spam, i went to the police to ask for advice and was told that I should get a lawyer in order to be safely getting out of it. According to police i am a part of the gang that either does credit card forgery or smuggle stuff out of europe illegally. Hence they recommended me to go to a lawyer.

Can you please tell me, what should be the best course of action next inorder to not have a record. As I havent forwarded any of their packages, if I send these back to the company and ask them to revert the money back to these credit cards, will i be safe enough? Any opinions would be really helpful.

Thanks,
J

You still have the items and did right to contact the police. The problem is that perhaps if you send them back you may send them to the scammer because nothing you are told is in anyway true. If you have real invoices and details of the transactions then contact first and keep the goods until you get a positive response. You might also go to bank with the papers and tell them you think the transactions are fraudulent. They ought to act on it as a matter of course. You have stolen property which can be recovered. You are now taking positive steps to ensure stolen property goes back to the owner. You now know and it would be difficult to have you prosecuted for being scammed espcially if you didn't ask for the goods in the first place. Unsolicited goods can be returned. Just ensure you send them to the right person. Tell the criminals nothing and just vanish. Keep your emails and paperwork as proof.

Welcome. I'm very sorry to hear what you have been through but am glad that you're in the process of getting out of it. We can advise you about the scam, but legal advise should come from your lawyer or law enforcement officers.
If you continue to receive packages, you should be able to refuse them, unopened. As to the ones you've already received, please take the advice of your local law enforcement or your lawyer regarding those.

The scammer is using the information of [email protected] for this scam. The website of http://www.logistik-alpha.com is fraudulent and we would like to report it to get it shut down. Can you please post an email from that email address, with a header?

Please let us know if you have further questions.

It is a common trick with scammers to use a real company name and direct links to it . In your case Alpha Logistiks. email: [email protected] is the real company name and the email address is fake. However the real company email address is like @alphalogistik.xx or for the sake of argument @alpha-logistik.com. This is not the same as what you were given (@logistik-alpha.com )and that is the trap and the mis-information the scammers rely on. I appreciate it is more difficult for you to recognise a cloned website however Google search will provide you with positive guidelines and opportunity to use your judgement.