Don’t get scammed this holiday season by any of the growing number of work-at-home and part time work opportunities that are probably cropping up in your inbox.

They always seem appear more often around the holidays and one of the most common scams will try to lure you into working part time for a foreign business. It will also likely require either a bank account to process customer payments, or a physical address to receive and forward parcels.

But don’t fall for it, even if it looks convincing and you could do with some extra income for the holidays. More often than not these scams are run by rings of identity thieves. Your bank account is used to hide and transfer money from id theft and credit card frauds, and the parcels you’re forwarding are probably purchased with stolen credit cards.

So not only will you not make any money, you could end up being accused of participating in a crime.

These days the scams are getting more crafty – in other words, more professional and convincing looking and therefore more likely to fool unwary users.

Here’s an example of one I just received – I removed the contact information so you’re not tempted to try it for yourself. But the web site the email linked to looked very convincing.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Our firm has an opening in our U.S. department for a Mail Forwarding Processor position. This will be a part-time/home based position and the applicant must have the following qualifications:

- E-mail access and ability to work 4 hours a day

- MS Word, MS Excel, PDF qualification

- U.S. authorized work status

- Cell phone for urgent duties

- Adult age

- Higher education

Starting salary is $25.00 per package + 5% commission from every processed parcel

Send your resume to: (email address removed)