Avoid these delivery scams over the holidays
WATCH YOUR STEP
Americans spent $211.4 billion online over the 2021 holidays, according to retail research company Digital Commerce 360. That was up 10% from 2020 as consumers continued to gravitate toward the ease and convenience of e-commerce. Scammers love the trend, too: they’ve developed myriad tricks to take advantage of the proliferation of packages, especially during the holiday season.
The primary ploy is a phony delivery notification, a scam that really ramped up amid the pandemic. People would receive an email or text message that claims to come from the U.S. Postal Service or a major delivery company like FedEx or UPS. The message would ask to confirm an order so it can be delivered, or that an unsuccessful attempt was made to drop off a package and needed to be rescheduled by clicking the link.
The scammer is hoping a person orders so many things online that they can’t keep track of all the purchases, or that they’ll assume it’s a gift from a friend or relative. The link will go to a bogus site that will ask for the person to enter personal or financial data, enabling a scammer to use it for identity theft. The fake site might also be a launchpad for malware that harvests sensitive information from devices.
Delivery scams have become the predominant form of textmessage phishing scams. Scammers sent out an astonishing 23 billion messages about faux deliveries in 2021, accounting for more than one in four spam texts, according to phone-security service RoboKiller.
There are low-tech variations, too. Scammers might call you posing as employees from a delivery service, saying they need a credit card number or other private data to reschedule a drop-off. Or they’ll leave a failed-delivery notice on your door with a number to call; if you do, the person on the other end will try to talk you into providing personal information to collect your purported package.
Warning Signs
• You receive an email, text, call or note about a delivery for something you don’t remember ordering. SCAM
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The message urges you to make a payment or provide personal or financial information to facilitate a delivery.
• The message includes misspellings or poor grammar.
•A supposed delivery company email has a sender’s address or link with a slightly different version of a business name, such as fedx.com instead oifedex.com.
How to protect yourself
• Be wary of unsolicited phone or electronic communications from a delivery service.
• Keep track of your online orders and their shipping status. Knowing what’s coming and when makes it easier to spot fake delivery messages.
• Rely on safe ways to communicate with delivery companies. Call a confirmed customerservice number, or log on to a company’s official website and use the chat function.
• Don’t click on a link or open an attachment in an unsolicited email or text message that appears to be from a delivery company.
• Don’t give out personal or credit card information to a caller. Instead, find and call the company’s official customerservice number and ask if they were trying to contact you about a delivery.
• Don’t reveal your user ID or password for a delivery company’s website to a caller or to anyone else.
• Don’t rely on officiallooking logos or professionalsounding language as proof of authenticity. Scammers study and copy companies’ actual communications to make their ploys look and sound convincing.
Report suspected package scams to the Federal Trade Commission, online or toll-free at 877-382-4357. If the scam occurred online, report it as well to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
If you receive a suspicious message that claims to be from UPS, forward it to fraud@ups. com for investigation, then delete the message.
If the message appears to be from FedEx, report it at abuse@ fedex.com.
Forward suspicious U.S. Postal Service emails to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at spam@uspis.gov.
For questions about a delivery notice from the U.S. Postal Service, visit its website or call 800-275-8777. — www.AARP.com
