As people look for ways to make extra income, fraud experts worry 'parcel mule' scams are on the rise. Here's how to avoid falling for one.

• "Parcel mules" participate in a scam where they receive and send illegal packages.
• The reshipping scam is often disguised as employment, experts told Insider.

It was the leaf blowers that sounded the alarms.

Sure, the company email address with a misspelling was odd. And the promise of a $2,400-a-month base salary for a job that didn't require much work sounded a little too good to be true.

But Stephen, who's based in Louisiana and in his 30s but asked to keep his last name anonymous for privacy reasons, was in the thick of a long job search, having been out of work for about a year and a half. And Bimco Ship, the company he'd signed up to work for in March after it reached out to him via email, seemed to have just enough professionalism for him to give it the benefit of the doubt. Until the leaf blowers showed up.

Specifically, 10 leaf blowers, which Stephen estimated, based on product listings, were valued at more than $2,000 total, were delivered to his home at the end of March, he told Insider. His job, the company told him, was to open the external packages — not the actual items — verify the contents, put new shipping labels on the packages, and send them to wherever his employer instructed him.

That's what he did when other packages, like one with a breast pump and another with hair clippers, arrived at his house. But while those other shipments had Stephen's name on them, he said, the leaf blowers were addressed to someone else.

"I'm tearing off the shipping labels that don't have my name on it, and I'm thinking something about this just ain't right," he said.

Stephen had apparently fallen for a reshipping scam, a type of fraud that involves recruiting people — called "parcel mules" — to receive packages that may have been obtained illegally and send them elsewhere, under the guise of employment.

Several Better Business Bureau complaints share stories similar to Stephen's. The BBB's page for Bimco Ship says the company is not located at its registered address "and is not offering legitimate employment." A spokesperson for Identiq, an identity-verification platform used for fraud prevention, told Insider that company research indicated Bimco Ship was likely running a parcel-mule scam.

An individual or group had created what seemed to be a legitimate company, Bimco Ship LLC, which as of late August was still registered in Iowa, according to documents reviewed by Insider. The name piggybacks off Bimco, a real international-shipping organization. Bimco Ship also provided orientation materials when Stephen was hired.

The Identiq spokesperson said that having a business registration does not itself prove the business is legitimate. Insider was unable to reach Bimco Ship by the phone numbers that appeared to be associated with it, and its website was not functioning.

A similar type of fraud involves money mules. Rather than being the conduits for illicit packages, money mules move cash through their bank accounts and often get to keep a portion of the funds.

"It's definitely the type of scam that is super successful," Paige Hanson, the chief of cyber-safety education at the cybersecurity-software company NortonLifeLock, told Insider, adding that the pandemic has made conditions ripe for these types of fraud because they're appealing to "somebody that is in need of some fast cash or a work-from-home job." The US Department of Justice said that in 2021 it more than doubled the number of enforcement actions against money mules compared with 2020.

Experts in identity protection and verification worry that even if the pandemic eases, these scams will persist. "Especially in this type of economy, there are more than a few people who are willing and looking for ways that they can earn some money working from home," said Uri Arad, the cofounder and vice president of product at Identiq.

Fraudsters cover their tracks through mules

Passing items or money through a third party helps fraudsters avoid detection. A fraudster trying to buy items for themselves online using stolen credit-card information, for example, might need to first ship the items near the address of the victim — using a parcel mule to do so — to avoid fraud-detection systems. The closer the match between the victim’s address and the place where the items get shipped, the fewer the red flags that would indicate a fraudster is using stolen card information.

"Depending on the type of fraud that you're trying to commit, you may be in need of multiple real types of information or access to real assets like bank accounts, a shipping address, or a real identity," Arad, who formerly worked in antifraud at PayPal, said.

While some people might willingly go along with a fraud to make money, others can get tricked into thinking they're part of a legal transaction.

Similar to what Netflix's "The Tinder Swindler" popularized, fraudsters can also use dating sites to recruit mules.

"When your new person that you're interested in asks you to do something for them, usually you're inclined to do it," Hanson said. "But the immediate red flag is if they ask you to receive money for them and forward the funds to individuals that you don't know."

Still, fraudsters can be convincing and come up with all sorts of reasons they need help moving money or goods. For example, they might say they need a bank account or address in a certain country to conduct business.

"Some of those explanations sound a little bit fishy, but at the end of the day they happen in real life, even at Identiq," Arad said. "We had a conference that we were running, and we were trying to print some merchandise, but the printer wouldn't ship outside of the US. So we had to get people to have the merchandise shipped to them and then have them reship the items."

How to avoid falling for a mule-type scam

Arad said that reducing the risk of falling for a fraud starts with a simple rule: "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is."

He added that when Identiq legitimately needed help getting merchandise overseas, it offered pay that was nominal but in line with the ease of the work.

"If you're making a lot of money for doing a little amount of work, 95% of the time those are going to be scams," Hanson said.

Another big red flag is a request to use your own credentials to help a business. "Even if you're dealing with someone that is asking you to reship or help them in one way or another, it's extremely unlikely that a legitimate business is going to ask you to open an account in your name on their behalf," Arad said.

Job seekers can also verify legitimacy by asking to communicate over email rather than just by phone or a messaging app. "That email address should go to the same domain of the company," Arad said.

The domain of the email address of the company Stephen was supposedly working for was bimcoemial.com, with a misspelling of "email."

After receiving the leaf blowers, Stephen said, he emailed the fake company pretending that the police had confiscated the items. The fraudsters tried to prove legitimacy by sending over documents such as a real certificate of existence with the Iowa Secretary of State's Office, which Insider reviewed. That soon turned into voicemails and emails threatening legal action if Stephen didn't ship the leaf blowers. He told Insider he didn't ship them.

About one month after he was hired, when he was supposed to receive his first paycheck, he lost his company login access, and all communication with Bimco Ship stopped. Stephen said he called a police department in Iowa to file a complaint but nothing seems to have resulted from it. (The department told Insider it was unable to find a record of Stephen's call.) He also said that he filed a formal complaint via the FBI's website and that he tried to contact his local police department but was unable to reach someone. He's now employed at a nationwide health franchise.

The risk of getting caught up in a mule scam can be high for victims even if they aren't aware they committed a crime. The FBI says on its website that acting as a money mule is a punishable offense; the punishment depends on the circumstances such as the level of complicity and the scale of the crime. In some cases, mules can get prison time. To minimize consequences, it's best to take action as soon as possible.

"Once you figure out you're a victim, you need to stop all communication with those suspected criminals. And you also want to stop transferring the money or other items," Hanson said, adding that "you want to maintain any receipts, contact information, and relevant communications."

She advised getting in touch with law enforcement and organizations like banks that may have been used as part of the scam.

Ideally, though, people targeted to assist a fraud will talk to someone before agreeing to participate. Hanson said that first talking to a trusted person like a family member or even a bank employee "reduces the chance that you're falling for some sort of scam."