![]() ![]() …until the next stage of the process demands a password for the associated email account: This message was aimed at our business email address, and the company’s physical address is a matter of public record, so just confirming delivery details doesn’t sound as though it’s a major privacy risk… The email simply offers you a waybill for a delivery that’s headed your way: KISS – Keep It Simple and Straightforwardīut some courier scams keep things way simpler than this, like this one we received ourselves over the weekend. In this sort of scam, the crooks won’t bill you $2.99 now, but they will almost certainly sell your credit card details on to someone else to rack up charges later on. The credit card transactions are almost always for very small amounts, such as $1 or $2.99, and some crooks helpfully advise that your card “won’t be charged until the delivery is complete”, as a way of making you feel more comfortable about committing to the payment. These fake delivery notices typically offer to help you reschedule the missed delivery (something that is occasionally necessary for legitimate deliveries of geniune online orders), but before you can choose a new date you usually need to login to a fake “courier company” website, hand over credit card data, or both. A fake delivery failed and the item was returned to the depot.In this sort of scam, the crooks are after as much personal information as they can persuade you to hand over, notably including full credit card data, phone number and home address. Once they have you on the hook, skilled social scammers in a call centre operated by the crooks offer to “help” you to cancel the bogus order or subscription (something that can be annoyingly hard for legitimate goods and services). Given that it’s easier to guess what you haven’t just bought than what you have, these crooks are banking that you will click the link or phone the “customer support” number they’ve helpfully provided in order to cancel or dispute the charge. These fake orders range from low-value subscriptions that have auto-renewed, all the way to expensive new mobile phones or gaming consoles that will ship imminently. A fake order will be delivered once you have confirmed the purchase.In this sort of scam, the crooks are directly after your money. Some unfortunate victims pay out this fee, in cash, in good faith. Finally, there’s a customs or tax payment to make before the item can be released in your country (something that often happens with genuine deliveries via geniune courier companies). The scammer then pretends to be the courier company handling the “delivery”, correctly identifying the item, its value and its made-up shipping code. This is a common ruse used by romance scammers, who sucker you into an online friendship, for example by stealing other people’s profile data from online data sites, courting you online, and then “sending” you a “gift”, often jewellery or something they know you would appreciate if it were real. ![]() A fake gift sent by an online “friend” is delayed by customs charges.These scams can take many different forms, including: We’ve been warning about fake courier scams on Naked Security for many years, even before the coronavirus pandemic increased our collective reliance on home deliveries. ![]()
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