I am waiting for a package to be delivered by the Royal Mail. It should have arrived yesterday but still hasn’t. I picked my phone up to call the supplier to see why it was late and spotted a text from the Royal Mail saying there was a £1.99 shortage on post and I needed to click the link to sort it out.

Obvious scam when you pause and think but the timing made me so close to clicking.

Close escape I guess.

Just thought I would share in case yo get a text from +447508867844 asking for £1.99 postage

I’ve had loads of these and the first one came when I was waiting for something from ebay so I was almost sucked in. I’ve had them since addressed from everyone like Royal Mail, Hermes, DPD etc.

I just wish I could come up with a scam like this. I bet they’re sitting somewhere absolutely raking it in!

Obvious scam when you pause and think but the timing made me so close to clicking.

some people have been getting near daily deliveries for the past 14 months, so yeah, a lot of people could have done the same thing.

I had one from Hermes the other day. I must admit it made me think twice but I didn’t click the link

Hermes one’s ask for £2.50 normally, or at least the 3-4 I have received previously always did
Royal Mail scams are just £1.99 🙂

Clearly a scam as Royal Mail include a handling charge of about £3.50 on top of the shortage! 🙂

Royal mail will put a card through the door if postage is due
I get the hermes one a lot

got one of those, thought it was legit, but my package was via parcel force, and the text said royal mail.
link takes you to a page, looks legit and asks for details. I stopped filling it in when it was asking for bank details, DOB etc. felt like a doofus for getting that far, but just wasn’t thinking.

Nearly fell for it the other day – clicked the link but website felt a bit dodge and sure enough, wasn’t the “real” Royal Mail website. Had a few others since but I get loads of text from various couriers saying stuff like “Your package will be delivered by tomorrow between 10 and 11am” so it didn’t immediately ring any alarm bells.

Glad you didnt, what a head/heartache that would be, and in the wrong time too, given this pandemic.

I like watching the scam busters on you tube. Hats off to those guys doing what they can to make scammers pay. Though it does make you wonder what goes on in the mind of a scammer, have they no scruples whatsoever 😕
Jim Browning is one of the best at exposing, and dealing with them, but there are a few others make it more a bait, and have the knowledge to hack into the scammers computer while they’re trying to hack into the victims.
https://www.youtube.com/c/JimBrowning/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid

My own thought about scammers involves something like a Glock.

I had one from Hermes the other day. I must admit it made me think twice but I didn’t click the link

We had one supposedly from them as well the other day. It was pretty well done, the site was convincing enough and the link was HTTPS and everything.

I fell for one purporting to be from DVLA. I’d been doing online chat trying to sort my electricity bill out then went straight to DVLA to tax two vehicles. Within half an hour I got a very realistic email supposedly from DVLA telling me I was owed a refund, please send us your bank details. I did and then as soon as I hit send realised it was a scam. I managed to contact the bank before any damage done but very close. The call centre must have been still connected and logging my key strokes. Never used online chat again!!

They’re everywhere at the moment taking advantage of the increase in online shopping. Please remember to forward them to 7726 so that we can gradually eliminate them and protect the more vulnerable!

My Google Pixel dumps them straight into spam. Received one earlier in the week. visit royalmail.parcel-destination.com kinda gave it away as garbage.

I have had a few now. First one I got i thought “how the hell do RM have my mobile number?”. After that second or so of thought it was clearly a scam.

Yeah get them now and then, always read the url backwards. My wife nearly fell for it a couple of weeks ago.

As scams go it is hardly going to ruin your life though unless you really need that £1.99.

Anything that comes in via a text asking for money via a link is ALWAYS going to be a scam though isn’t it?

As scams go it is hardly going to ruin your life though unless you really need that £1.99.

It’s nice that you think the scammers would stop at £1.99.

Got this the other day, seemed legit.

Kerley, normally to pay the £1.99 you are providing the scammer with your full bank account details. They don’t just take £1.99.

Got this the other day, seemed legit.

Yep, sexycanvas.com really seems legit doesn’t it.

Kerley, normally to pay the £1.99 you are providing the scammer with your full bank account details. They don’t just take £1.99.

Clicking on a dodgy looking link is careless, entering bank account details is another thing.

I’ve been getting weekly ish texts from various ‘banks’ asking me to confirm a new payee on my account. The first time it nearly caught me as I clearly didn’t recognise the payee and natural reaction was to click on the link to find out what was happening. But it all started to look dodgy and I stopped before getting any further than going on to the link page.

I don’t know how anyone falls for these.

As the OP said for most people it will be about the timing. The only time I’ve ever come close is when I was distracted and trying to do too many things at once…

I don’t know how anyone falls for these.

Because they haven’t been educated or kept up with modern communication methods.
For us it is very easy as any text with a link in is clearly dodgy but someone like my mum for example would not think of looking at the URL name. Same with email.

Where I work they do tests to see who falls for dodgy emails and it is surprising the number of people who fail the test and click the link. All of these people really shouldn’t be falling for it.

Where I work they do tests to see who falls for dodgy emails and it is surprising the number of people who fail the test and click the link. All of these people really shouldn’t be falling for it.

+1 and it only takes the right combination of confounding factors to risk tripping up even the most careful.

They seem to come in bursts as far as I can tell. Had several bank texts the last few days on both work and home phones and it’s gone quiet again. Give it a few weeks and I expect to see another flurry.

link takes you to a page, looks legit and asks for details.

On my iPad, I always tap on the bold From: bit at the top, which will give you the actual senders email address, which will give you a big clue. I keep getting spam emails at the moment, here’s one that arrived a couple of hours ago, as it happens, I’ve taken a screenshot of the actual source, which shows a bunch of people have had their accounts hacked, and are being used by spammers to send out a shit-tonne of crappy emails supposedly from places like Morrisons, Aldi, etc.

I don’t know how anyone falls for these.

I didn’t but because I was waiting for an notification from the Post Office about a delayed parcel I almost did. Just a a gentle nudge/reminder to people

Anyway, I feel we know each other airvent, what was your mother maiden name?

Got one of these a few weeks ago and I must admit my first thought was “that’s quite clever”. URL was the giveaway but I’m sure they’ll find ways to make that convincing soon and plenty of legitimate companies will send you a text or email with a link in it. I’m fairly confident that I won’t fall for one of these but I can see why plenty do.

Plenty don’t need to. It’s a numbers game. It’s as cheap to email half the world as it is to send one mail, and you only need one sap to take them for tens of thousands.

By way of context, I have an email / password list which is a text file running to just shy of 11GB.

I always tap on the bold From: bit at the top, which will give you the actual senders email address, which will give you a big clue

No, it gives you the email address the sender wrote in their software as the ‘From’ address they wanted you to see.

If you want to know whether the email might actually have been sent by the owner of that address, you need to look in the full headers, which take a bit of practice to read but aren’t difficult.

My wife nearly fell for it a couple of weeks ago.

Same here – and as others have said, she was waiting for a package to be delivered and assumed it was legitimate. Fortunately she received it whilst we were sat watching the telly and showed me it so I did a quick Google.

along a similar line, for Facebook users.

“The colour of your pants and your first pet’s name” is not your “porn star name”, its the answer one of your secret questions.

I did initially wonder how it worked as it seems harmless enough, but when you think about it its pretty effecitve wheeze.
The people who are answering these questions are not likely to have their profiles locked down, so if someone gets your bank account login, they probably have your name, and then a quick facebook search and a rummage through your profile doesnt take a few minutes. If youve posted one about your first pets name, youve probably got one about your mother maiden name and the last thing you ate being your super hero name or some inane bobbins

My son fell for a Paypal one that came in on a text. I didn’t see it, so don’t know how legit it looked, but he went through putting his bank card details in, before calling me and checking. Got his card stopped/pwds changed before any damage was done.
I think I’ll warn him about the package delivery ones, cos he does order clothes online.

“The colour of your pants and your first pet’s name” is not your “porn star name”, its the answer one of your secret questions.

I did a presentation at work a little while ago and used this example (first car + mother’s maiden name). People’s faces when I dropped the punchline were amazing, you could visibly see like half the room go “oh shit!”

I think I’ll warn him about the package delivery ones

The problem with this approach is there’s always another scam. You could warn him about the package delivery ones, the Paypal ones, the HMRC ones, then one comes in from ‘Amaz0n’ and he’s screwed because no-one warned him about that one.

We’ve discussed “how to spot a scam” at length at work and whilst stuff like mouse-overing the URL or looking at the email address may be all well and good, the best way I’ve come up with so far is simply to ask “was I expecting this?” There are exceptions of course but legitimate unsolicited emails / SMSes are comparatively rare. If you start from a default assumption of “this is probably a scam but could be genuine” instead of “this is probably genuine but could be a scam” then you’re in a much, much stronger position. If you genuinely believe that it might be genuinely genuine, go check your accounts on a different device. If you do have a problem with an account or a delivery then there will be evidence elsewhere. Never, ever follow a link sent to you unsolicited.

The simple rule for people not really savvy is just don’t click on anything in a text or an email.

I.e. If PayPal need you to do something log directly onto the PayPal site and check from there.

The National Crime Agency have been trying to arrest me for months. They keep calling but just can’t seem to find me.

I don’t know how anyone falls for these.

For the scam stuff which is obviously a hoax, the trick is to filter out the people who know it’s a scam. Once you’ve done a first pass at selecting the people who don’t know that parce1-tracking.com.kr isn’t Royal Mail, you’ve a much better chance of getting them to enter full bank details and other personal information (create an account! for security, what’s your mother’s maiden name) too.

The problem with this approach is there’s always another scam. You could warn him about the package delivery ones, the Paypal ones,

Very true – pretty sure I told him, after the Paypal one, not to follow any links in any texts (except the hilarious ones I send him, natch), but worth reiterating.

I did a presentation at work a little while ago and used this example (first car + mother’s maiden name). People’s faces when I dropped the punchline were amazing, you could visibly see like half the room go “oh shit!”

I can’t remember which company did it but during a cyber security conference they set up a ‘free wi fi’ hub during the lunch break. In the afternoon session they called out people in the audience who had used it and told them their credit card numbers, email details or what ever they had used the free wi fi for.

This was a conference for cyber security experts!