United Forwarding

Victim Location 80301

Type of a scam Credit Cards

I responded to an ad placed by United Forwarding on Indeed.Com in January or February of 2016 for mail forwarding. I was to receive "correspondence" for clients. I visited their website and did wonder why the website appeared to be out of New Zealand but shows a mailing address in Grandville, MI. I googlDiaz, ed the mailing address, and it looked to be a warehouse-type setting. The website did look legit, and I sent them a photo of me holding my passport (vs. driver’s license) and a scan of a utility bill. I was not required to send a W9 or any other personal information. The ad specified receiving 50 pieces of mail per week. Over the next 7 months (bringing us to July 2016), I only received just 15 pieces of mail. Two shipping labels were sent to me, the first where I "forwarded" 11 pieces of mail and the 2nd in June where I forwarded 3 pieces of mail. At one point in March when I hadn’t received mail or heard from my "manager" also suspiciously with my same surname of "Diaz," I emailed them to inquire and tried to log onto my user panel on their website, and the site was inaccessible. A few days later, my "manager" replied that she had been on business travel and that the site should be back up. I noticed that the site was revamped with supposed improvements but that the date of most recent payment was incorrect and that the amount paid was just $8 vs. the $88 I’d already been paid for the 11 pieces of mail. Also, all of the mail was junk mail, which didn’t make sense to me, and only 1 piece per "client" listed, so that was another red flag. I then received 1 other piece of mail and 2 that weren’t listed on my user panel. I mailed these to them in June. I never had to pay for shipping and simply received a label, stood in line at the local P. O and got receipts for forwarding the items. Just a few days ago, however, I was informed that I would be receiving a package. I thought that was a bit odd. I then missed the UPS delivery of that package. I emailed my manager to that effect, and she became a bit rude, telling me to be sure not to miss the redelivery. I let her know that, given the fact that these mailings were few and far between and that they had in late spring indicated that I needed to be able to handle "300" (!) mailings per week, yet I had only received 1 more piece of mail and a couple that weren’t even listed on my user panel, and that now I was receiving a package, which wasn’t my understanding about the description of the job, their impatience was a bit excessive. I then missed the package the second day and spent time on the phone to have it redelivered. But something just didn’t seem right to me. That evening, I googled "United Forwarding Scam" and realized that these package forwarding scams come in many "flavors" of many different company names and are quite widespread. I then found the address on the website actually listed on another site as a verified scam address. It sounded to me then like this was a scam and that the merchandise in the package had been purchased with a stolen credit card. A site warning people about such scams indicated to stop all communication with the scammers and return any package, so I called UPS and they told me I could return the package if it were unopened and just put "RTS" on it for return to sender, and there would be no charge. I brought it back the next day, which is today. I came to the BBB site to hopefully warn others. I also filtered all email messages from my "manager" to be immediately archived so that I don’t have to see them but will still have them just in case I’m ever asked to present them as any type of evidence. I’m glad that the BBB has a pngage for reporting these scams, and I’m really glad that I trusted my gut and didn’t become an unwitting accomplice to credit card fraud and/or stolen merchandise.

in the information included below, I do not know the cost of the item or what the item was that was most likely charged to the victim’s credit card. Although I was the target of the scam and listed my information below, I think the true victim here is anyone listed as a "client" of United Forwarding.

Incidentally, when I copied the "manager’s" email from my gmail, I saw that there had been no reply or followup by that supposed manager to the seemingly urgent nature of this package being received. I had sent an email to indicate that I did receive the package with UPS redelivery almost 24 hours ago and have not yet received a reply. As well, when I called my local UPS to ask how to proceed, they didn’t sound in the least bit surprised when I mentioned that I thought I had received this package as part of a scam and wanted to return it.

Update: I tried to submit this scam alert and was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, today Fedex came to my door to pick up the package. I told them I had returned it to UPS and that this was a scam.

Victim Location 43229

Type of a scam Employment

I was on Indeed.com or Career Builder.com. I applied for a job with United Forwarding. Since February, they’ve been sending me mail. I think it’s a scam. I have reported this to police and I will report this post office. I was paid $90.00.