A Birmingham woman wants other to beware of an employment scam parading as work-from-home employment with Amazon.

Belinda Jackson told CBS 42 her husband recently passed away and she is looking for secondary income in the form of a work-from-home data entry or customer service job to support her family. 

Jackson said she came across a website and a phone number that claimed to help people apply to jobs with Amazon. Since the online retail giant recently announced a fulfillment center coming to Bessemer, Jackson said she thought the job posting was legitimate. 

Jackson turned over her bank account information to the scammer, under the impression it was for direct deposit of her pay checks, and also unintentionally allowed remote access to her computer. 

When she saw the cursor on her computer screen move, she knew she was in trouble. 

“He went into my Amazon account, which he asked me did I have one, I told him I did not because I didn’t want him to getting my password,” Jackson said. “So he was fixing to open up a new account, and by the time I’ve seen my credit card, information I started unplugging, deleting and doing everything I can to get him out, and he was saying ‘no, no, no, don’t do that, don’t do that,'” Jackson said. 

Jackson said that is when everything escalated and the man on the phone told her she would not be able to get a job with Amazon anyway because she is black.

“I was thrown for a loop, and I asked him again, and he said,  ‘You are a [n-word], and I was just confused with me calling Amazon and thinking I was calling the right place and the employees would treat a customer like that,” Jackson said. 

Jackson hung up and called the Better Business Bureau to report the incident. 

According to BBB Communications Manager Ande Kral, “BBB spoke with an Amazon representative who informed us that you can only apply for Amazon jobs online, there is no paper application. As far as we can tell, there aren’t any jobs posted for our area yet, but when they are you can go to amazon.force.com to apply.”

The BBB also warns consumers to ensure they are looking at legitimate business websites for customer service numbers since scammers post fake numbers online to trick people into calling them instead. The number for Amazon Human Resources is (888) 892-7180.

Jackson said at this time it does not appear that any of her money has been compromised and she will continue to search for work-from-home jobs.