Warning after woman caught up in questionable work at home job

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- With six children to look after, Lynn Davis thought working at home was the perfect solution. A shipping company called her for an interview and it sounded promising.

"You look like you'd be a perfect candidate," she recalled. "I said OK, and they set it up for a time and day."

After a phone interview and resume review by email she was told she would receive packages with inventory from an international company, open them, sometimes combining them and other times separating them before shipping them on.

Davis explained, "They would send me the labels and I would print them out."

She thought she did her homework, researching the web site, calling the phone number -- she even checked the BBB and found no negative reviews. The merchandise arrived and she did the work for about a month.

Then it was time to start receiving paychecks, but Davis said she's never been paid. When she reached out to the company the phone numbers were out of service, an email response said the company's stock was down and the future uncertain

"Last week I started getting uneasy and nervous. I knew how much my family was relying on the money," she said.

Mary Dickerson, an IT security expert at the University of Houston, explained, "It's easier for me to create a website and call it whatever I want. I can send you to it and make it look real. People need to take extra steps and be cautious and skeptical."

Davis says she didn't give the company any money out of pocket. But this past week another strange turn of events -- about a dozen Paypal credit card denials with her address but other names.

And she is still trying to figure out exactly what she was a part of, while warning others of what happened.

"Work at home I think is the easiest way to pull someone in," she cautioned.