I am going to tell you about my story that I am dealing with at the moment. I am posting this to warn all of you because this could happen to anyone and anywhere. This is not purely political story and it is not directly from USA, but I found a lot of similar frauds happened mostly in the USA so there are probably similar problems. Furthermore I am a regular follower of Daily Kos and I like the community here. I would be very happy if I could see receive some feedback about that.
I am a 19 year old girl who is studying abroad which means I am far away from my family and friends.
As a student, every each one of us (students) must want to earn our own money.
That is the reason why I got caught up in this situation.
I was looking for a job via online and then I found a website which is U*****.com. Lots of my friends have been working there for quite long times and they earned good money there. I was so interested then I decided to create an account. I was aiming to be a translator as I speak 3 languages, but without luck, I didn't get any translator job there.
One day, I suddenly got an email from that website and it said I got an offer for a job which was a virtual assistant. Without thinking twice (because I know u*****.com is a legal website), I accepted the offer. Long short story, I am employed by this guy BUT it was still a testing stage so I am not fully employed, I did not even write a contract. I did not know that time that I was actually being scammed, I only talked to him via email and that was it. I know I am really stupid. I should have realized it for a long time ago. But what else could I do back then? I was in need of money and I have never worked before so I was totally clueless.
My job was quite simple, this guy ordered stuffs from Onlineshops and got them shipped to my address. I had to receive those packages and forward it to his “clients”. Which I did. I shipped 19 Packages in total. Those packages were mostly electronics which costed around 300-899 EUR. I “worked” for him for 1 month. The scammer who is my “employer” promised to pay me with a base salary 1,200 EUR plus bonuses 20 EUR per packages in every 30 days after I receive my first package.
Then, it came to my payment day. He went missing. I could not reach him at all. (well that’s obvious). I kept emailing him and waiting for an answer (such a stupid act). Then I just did not know what to do, I thought he was just messing with me by making me work for him for free but I had no idea that actually the stuffs that he bought might have been part of some illegal stuff. And now, he successfully made me as his scape goat.
I found out that this job is a scam when I suddenly received a bill which costed 600 EUR. I didn’t even order that stuff, but the scammer did.
I reported to the police about what happened, but the police was just laughing and refused to write a report, but (oh thank god) I got some people I knew helped me to get through the situation and in the end, the police finally filed a report and took all of the evidences with them. I was feeling safe. Until 2 months later (which was like a week ago) I received a mail from the police which is from another department. They wanted me to come for an investigation because they accused me as a suspect of money laundering by being a package agent. I was in schock.. Trembling.. Nervous.. And afraid. I’d really want to kill myself.
My stupidness seriously ruined my life.
I couldn't sleep well even until now. I could not eat. i lose my appetite easily. Thank god I got friends and people who supported me in this situation so I could feel a bit better now, even only a bit. I appreciated it a lot.
I tried to get a law protection as I am a victim here but I could not afford a lawyer. I also looked for a help for a victim’s support. Unfortunately they refused to help me because the police already wrote me as a suspect. Apparently they do not work with people who are suspects and the fact that I was a victim of Identity theft and this reshipping fraud did not interest them.