All you have to do is send a résumé with some personal information to a company in Russia. They, in turn, ask you to set up a checking account that soon starts filling with cash. You take the money to Western Union and wire it to your new employer, keeping 5 percent and 10 percent for yourself. Easy money, right?

Except that it's illegal money laundering, called "money muleing" by the security industry. The incoming checks are fakes, or else the cash is stolen from hacked online bank accounts.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Wednesday that its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has been receiving "numerous complaints" from people who have become unwitting victims to these work-from-home scams.

"Work-at-home schemes attract otherwise innocent individuals, causing them to become part of criminal schemes without realizing they are engaging in illegal behavior," the FBI said. The IC3 is run jointly by the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

In other, similar scams, victims may be asked to reship products that have been purchased with stolen credit cards, or to act as "mystery shoppers," cashing bogus checks and wiring the funds offshore.