The FBI has recently issued a news release, urging consumers to be aware when seeking employment on-line. Numerous complaints have been filed by individuals who have fallen victim to work-at-home scams. Victims are often hired to process payments, transfer funds or re-ship products. These job scams involve the victims receiving and cashing fraudulent checks, transferring illegally obtained funds for the criminals, or receiving stolen merchandise and shipping it to the criminals. Other victims sign up to be so-called mystery shoppers, receiving fraudulent checks with instructions to cash the checks and then wire the funds to test a company`s services. Victims are told they will be compensated with a portion of the merchandise or funds. Work-at-home schemes attract otherwise innocent individuals, causing them to become part of criminal schemes without realizing that they are engaging in illegal behavior. Job scams often provide criminals the opportunity to commit identity theft, when victims provide their personal information and sometimes even bank account information, to their potential employer. The criminal/employer can then use the victim`s information to open credit card accounts, post on-line auctions, register websites, and so on in the victim`s name in order to commit additional crimes. If you feel you’ve been a victim of any type of Internet crime, you can file a complaint at www.IC3.gov