Ship Gecko Logistics LLC (SGL Post) – Ship-Gecko.com 

Hiring scam looking for work-from-home “Distribution Associate”

 

[Published 5/21/21] This article marks the 18th fake shipping business we’ve uncovered by a Russian-speaking criminal gang. Last week we published two new articles about scam websites representing shipping companies who want to hire people to repackage boxes in a “work-from-home” scam.   All of these fake websites are similar, and some of their websites are nearly identical or extremely similar!  The essential scam is always the same.  People are hired to receive, repackage and reship merchandise purchased with stolen credit cards, and are never paid for their work. Instead, they are ghosted.  Furthermore, victims are being tricked into acting as “mules” to illegally move merchandise.  Earlier in 2021, a woman named Amanda Irby took one of these jobs from a shipping company called Sinoway Operations USA LLC as a “warehouse coordinator.”  After about 4 weeks, Ms. Irby was never paid for her time as contracted.  Also, the local police showed up at her home because one of the packages shipped to her, and that she shipped to somewhere else, was purchased by a stolen credit card.  She posted her experience on LinkedIn. Sinoway Operations USA LLC, like all of these scam companies, folded their website and opened a new scam site under a new name.

As a test for newly “hired” “employees,” most mules are sent a fake gold bar as one of their first few boxes to repackage and ship somewhere else. People may think it is worth thousands of dollars but it is sold for less than $6 on many websites such as AliExpress.com.

Check out our other articles about these scam websites and the “jobs” they offered:

https://www.thedailyscam.com/quality-control-manager-shipping-scams/ (published 5/15/21)

https://www.thedailyscam.com/warehouse-coordinator-shipping-scam/ (published 5/15/21)

https://www.thedailyscam.com/package-reshipping-scams-are-like-whac-a-mole/ (updated 3/8/21)

https://www.thedailyscam.com/quality-control-inspector-shipping-scams/ (published 2/19/21)

https://www.thedailyscam.com/qyshippers-package-reshipping-scam/  (published 12/24/20)

https://www.thedailyscam.com/package-reshipping-scams-again/ (updated 10/22/20)

https://www.thedailyscam.com/package-reshipping-scams/ (updated 6/24/20)


The newest scam shipping site, as of May, 2021, is Ship Gecko Logistics (SGL Post).  It can be found at Ship-Gecko.com. Below is a list of reasons why this “business” is a scam website and a completely fake business.  However, to truly appreciate this fraud, you should read some of our related articles, as we’ve exposed these Russian-Speaking criminals for several years now.

1. Their business domains were registered less that 2 weeks before we found them and are many years younger than the number of years they say they have been in business!  A WHOIS lookup of their domains, ship-gecko.com and ship-geckoemail.com (used to send emails to their “employees”) show that they were registered on May 7, 2021, about 2 weeks before we published this article.  And yet, their website claims they are “8 Years on Market” and have 38,640 clients in 24 countries.  Quite remarkable for less than 2 weeks in existence!  These fake statistics are EXACTLY the same as the statistics they showed on several of their other fake companies, such as RDP Post (Scroll halfway down the article), Shea Post and Mindrey Post. (Scroll to the bottom of the article.) (NOTE: the website ship-gecko.com is hosted on a server in Ukraine.)

          

2. The address in Washington, DC listed for this business, both on their website and on all Government Registry documents, DOES NOT EXIST!  SGL Post claims to be located at 3921 Stanton Rd SE, Washington, DC 20020.  And yet Google Maps, and various realtor websites show that houses on Stanton Rd SE begin with number 2600 and end with number 3563 where it then junctions with Mississippi Ave SE. There is NO number 3921 on this street! Additionally, this is a residential neighborhood, not commercial real estate!

3. Google Searches show nothing about this business. Wouldn’t you think that a business would want Google’s attention to inform the public about it?  They would want to show up high on the list of returns when people search for shipping companies, especially in the area where they are located or when searching for their name, right? This is NOT the case when searching for either Ship Gecko Logistics LLC or SGL Post, EXCEPT for the Registration of their business name on the website OpenCorporates.com (Open Corporates ALSO shows that this business was first registered as a business on March 25, 2021 and is located at the above address which doesn’t exist!) 

Searching for either of their business names, with or without quotes around them, turns up no other links, references, reviews or anything at all about this shipping business, as of May 20, 2021.  Even if you ask Google to search for the very domain where this website is posted, Site-Gecko.com, Google can see it but it will tell you that it doesn’t know anything at all about it. (See screenshot) If you click “Learn why” Google’s Help Center says “It means that the website prevented Google from creating a page description, but didn’t actually hide the page from Google.”  Why would Ship-Gecko.com try to hide itself from search engines like Google?  Because they are a FAKE BUSINESS!

4. All Website Testimonials are FAKE and use stock images. The people in them are not real.

This criminal gang always uses stock photos to represent themselves, along with stolen images of others to whom they apply new fictitious names.  Sometimes they use the same images on multiple websites and if you look back through our many articles about these criminals you’ll see many of the same stock photos on these different websites. Applying a fictitious name to a stock photo, and making up a fictional review is a lie.  There were 4 such fake reviews on their website on May 19. We make our point below by showing you two of them: “Arleen Durbin” and “David Sims.”

“Arleen Durbin” is a stock image that can be purchased from at least five stock image websites, such as Adobe, Freepik and Envato.  Also interesting to note is the fact that Google searches for what “Arleen Durbin” and “David Sims” both say in their reviews, turns up THE EXACT REVIEWS (word for word) by people named “Thomas” and “Andre”  on a Shipping business in Texas called Bonvu.com. Even David Sims’ poor English is identical to the review by Andre on the Bonvu.com website!

5. Ship-Gecko.com uses stolen content from legitimate shipping company websites, AND have used the same text over and over on many of their fraudulent websites!

The screenshot below was taken from the main page of Ship-Gecko.com, under the section they call “Who We Are.” You’ll see that the text says…

“Partnering with SGL Post means that you have a full team of trained and educated specialists at your disposal to help you make smart, effective and strategic decisions about your logistics operations. With SGL POST, we won’t put your logistics issues in a box. Instead, we will design a unique box to address your distinct logistics challenges and needs. This is why our average customer stays with us 9+ years”


Once again, let’s remember that this business didn’t exist until a few weeks ago, NOT “9+ years” ago! However, if you google the portion of the sentence in red above, along with quotes around it, you’ll discover that this text was stolen, word-for-word, from a REAL shipping company called TranslogisticsInc.com and appears on their “About Us” page. (The quotes around the text tell Google to find ONLY those words, in exactly that order.) We know that Translogisticsinc.com is a real company for many reasons, including the fact that their domain was registered in May, 2000. There is a lot of verifiable information about this business available online, including the fact that it has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.)

 

Ironically, a search for this text from Ship-Gecko.com, also turned up a link in Google to an article we published on The Daily Scam about two of the other fake websites created by these Russian-speaking criminals, called Shea-Post.com and MindryUSA.com.  The article is called “Package Reshipping Scams are like Whac-A-Mole.”

 

We could go on and on about this fake business and the fraud perpetrated against Americans. If you wonder why we continue to say that these many scam websites were created by a criminal gang that speaks Russian, you’ll have to read our article titled QYShippers – Package Reshipping Scam. The best we can offer Americans is to read our articles and familiarize yourself with these scams! But most importantly…

 

These are the biggest RED FLAG WARNING SIGNS THAT A SHIPPING COMPANY OFFERING YOU A JOB IS REALLY A SCAM:

  1. The company’s interview process is only via a phone call or text.  They refuse to interview you via a video chat or in person. (Many people have reported to us that the managers, supervisors, etc that they speak to, all have foreign accents.) Don’t be fooled by long, legal “employment agreements” or fancy animated videos explaining what your job will be! These criminals often use both.
  2. The job is ONLY “work from home” or work from home while the “new offices are being built.”
  3. You are sent packages to inspect but all you do is receive them from one location/source, REMOVE ALL LABELS including any shipping information inside the box, repackage the merchandise and reship it to another location. Essentially, you are ANONYMIZING this stolen merchandise, making it harder to trace!  And you report your work through a web portal, never by video chat.
  4. You are told that your first paycheck will arrive after 2 – 4 weeks of work. It doesn’t!
  5. Can you find the company’s website name or the business name listed on the Better Business Bureau as an official company RECOGNIZED by the BBB?  When you conduct a Google search for the business name, do you see lots of information about this company? Or nothing at all?
  6. Do you see this business listed on TrustPilot.com or other TRUSTED websites with positive reviews? Are other people writing positive reviews about this company? (Not just a few people, but MANY people!) 
  7. How long does the company say they have been in business?  Compare this number with the date on which they registered their domain name using a WHOIS tool such as: Whois.sc, DomainBigData.com or Whois.net. For example, if a company says they’ve been doing business for 11 years but their domain was registered just 2 months ago is a scam!

 

TITLES USED BY THESE SCAMMERS WHEN THEY ADVERTISE A POSITION:

Distribution Associate
Warehouse Coordinator
Quality Control Inspector
Packing Specialists
Quality Inspector
Logistics Manager
Materials Manager
Customer Service Manager
Package Manager
Package Reshipper

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