Royal Mail and DPD are warning about a fake Christmas delivery scam – what to look out for

The fake message states that a parcel was attempted to be delivered, but no one was home, or there was no safe place to leave it. Recipients are then asked to follow a link where they must prove their identity and enter their bank details to reschedule the delivery.

Unwitting victims have then received a phone call from scammers pretending to be from Natwest, asking them for a cash transfer.

This follows a similar Royal Mail scam which was circulating in November, which involved fake texts or emails claiming customers needed to pay a fee of £1.99 to have an item redelivered. Again, recipients were then asked to enter their bank details online.

Royal Mail has issued a statement asking people who receive a suspicious email, or discover a fake Royal Mail branded website, to contact them.

Those who have been the victim of a payment scam can get a crime reference number by reporting it to their local police station.

DPD has also issued a warning to customers, urging recipients to check the message has come from a valid email address before taking any action.

The delivery company only emails from one of three email addresses. These include:

If the email has not come from one of these three addresses, it is likely to be a phishing scam and should be reported to report@phising.gov.uk.

In a statement, DPD said, “We have recently been made aware of a payment fraud scam requesting payment for the delivery of a parcel.

“Although this appears to be from DPD, the sender is a telenet email address – and not one of the three approved DPD addresses.

“Always check the ‘From’ section in an email and if it isn’t a valid DPD address, report it by contacting report@phishing.gov.uk.”

Action Fraud recommends being wary of fraudulent emails and messages that:

are unsolicited and supposedly come from a reputable organisation, such as a bank or credit card companyencourage you urgently to visit a website or call a number to verify or update your detailsrequest your personal information such as username, password or bank account

If you do receive a suspicious message you should not reply to it, and be cautious about clicking on any links that may be embedded, or calling a number that may be provided.

If you have responded to a message that you suspect to be a scam and gave your bank account details, you should contact your bank immediately.