Parcel and package delivery scams

Sarah Lenette, Starling’s financial crime specialist, takes a look at how fraudsters use texting and package deliveries to try and scam people.

Online shopping can be extremely convenient. But it’s important to be very cautious of any texts you receive from companies, notifying you that they’ve been unable to deliver the latest gadgets/trainers/socks. They could be from fraudsters.

Criminals are sending out texts pretending to be from well known delivery companies such as DPD, Royal Mail or Parcelforce. It’s an attempt to steal personal information and scam you out of your money. They can even spoof a phone number, making a text look like it’s from a genuine company and even appear in a previous chain of texts.

These messages will typically contain a link which sends you to a fake website, designed to look like it belongs to a genuine delivery company. You may then be asked for your personal information (name, address and contact details) to ‘reschedule your delivery’ and sometimes asked for a card payment.

With this information, criminals may try to process payments on your card and then call you pretending to be from your bank, claiming that there’s been unusual activity on your account.

Because the scammers have all of your information, they can sound very convincing, quoting your email and card details back to you. They may then try to persuade you that your bank account is no longer safe and that you will need to send your balance to a new account they’ve created for you.

Remember: no bank will ever ask you to move your money to keep it safe. If this happens, hang up and call 159 to be put directly in touch with your bank to verify the call.

If you receive a message about a missed delivery, even if you’re expecting packages, always proceed with great caution and be very suspicious of requests for your personal information.

Many companies (like Royal Mail and Parcelforce) will not request a payment via text or email, so check on the company’s website (don’t use the link in the message!) to see if this is something they would legitimately do.

Some companies have trackers which show you the location of your parcel. They will share details with you when you order, so you can track the parcel’s status. If you’re still unsure, contact the delivery company directly using the contact details on their website.

If you think you’ve received a fraudulent text, report it to your network provider by forwarding it to 7726.