You get a call or a text asking if you are so-and-so at (address). The person claims that they accidentally autofilled your name and address on (site) instead of their own.

They are very apologetic and ask if you can either refuse the shipment or they’ll reimburse you for sending it on to them if you can’t/won’t refuse said shipment. If you agree, they’ll give you their address.

You ship the item, they pay you back, and later you might find the payment is gone… and maybe you have been in receipt of goods paid for with a stolen credit or debit card.

How to protect yourself

First of all, this is a very dangerous scam to fall prey to. Most scams are bad because they either take your money, expose you to identity theft, or allow account takeover. This is one of the few that can cause you to be arrested.

If you receive the item, do not send it to the person. Instead, contact your local law enforcement - or the law enforcement local to where the item was dispatched, if the scammer sent to an old address - and let them know what happened. (This is assuming your local law enforcement is not corrupt or otherwise untrustworthy.) You may also wish to inform the shipping company if you know what it is. The main thing is that you do not want to get stuck with what is essentially stolen merchandise!

What is happening is that a scammer runs a dropshipping shop somewhere. When someone orders an item, the scammer uses a stolen credit card to order the item off a legitimate site. They then ship the item to a random person whose name, address, and phone number they’ve obtained. Then they contact that person, convince them to send it to the new address, and leave that person holding the bag on essentially stolen merchandise.

Note that there is a different, related scam where someone thinks they have a legitimate job reshipping items that are sent to them. This related scam is called a Parcel Mule scam.

Another scam that might be mistaken for this one is the Brushing scam, where you are not contacted, just sent a random item. (This item is not bought using stolen funds but is used to commit a different type of scam.)