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A scam has beenen doing the rounds pretending to be from Royal Mail, which can lead to people’s funds being put at risk.
The scam involves a text message from fraudsters about an unpaid fee, urging people to follow a link to a suspicious website.
Here’s everything you need to know about the scam, and what to look out for.
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How does the scam work?
The scam involves a text message being sent to people’s phones which tells them they have to pay a shipping fee for an item and provides a link that will take them to a fake website.
One such text seen by i said: “ROYAL MAIL: Your parcel has a £2.99 shipping fee. Please pay this now via [web link] or the parcel will be returned to sender.”
The website which is accessed by the link may ask people to enter personal or financial details, which puts them at risk of money being stolen or their accounts being hacked.
People have shared many slightly different variants of this scam on social media.
While the wording was slightly different, such as “please confirm the settlement of 1.99 (GBP) on the following link…,” most messages centered around payment needed for delivery with a link to a website.
Banking company Monzo is among those to shared posts to raise awareness of the scam.
What else have people said about the scam?
One woman claimed she was scammed out of “every penny” she had after falling for scam.
In a post on Twitter that has been widely shared, Emmeline Hartley told of how she received a text message claiming to be from Royal Mail, followed the link, and entered her details into a fake website.
She said she later received a phone call claiming to be from Barclays bank but turned out to be further fraudsters, telling her “someone who had tried to set up direct debits” on her accounts.
Under false pretences of protecting her money, the person on the phone convinced her to to transfer her funds to another account, she added.
She shared how much information the fraudster seemed to know about her: “This man knew it was my birthday, he knew I had been excluded from government support throughout the pandemic due to being newly self-employed, he knew I am a student and he knew I currently have no meaningful income.”
The BBC reports that the 28-year-old’s bank has now agreed to fully reimburse her, after she moved £1000 from it as asked by the fraudster.
A spokesperson for Barclays said: “No genuine bank would message you to transfer money to a ‘safe account’ – we advise any customers to ignore anyone who asks to do this, whether it’s by phone, email or any other method,” according to the BBC.
Her message prompted many others to share their own stories of receiving scam messages.
What has Royal Mail said about the scam?
Royal Mail Help responded with the following to a post on Twitter, in which someone shared a fraudulent text: “This isn’t one of our messages. We’ll only send SMS notifications where the sender has requested this and uses a product that offers this service. If a fee is due on an item we’d leave a grey card to confirm this, we wouldn’t send a text.”
In general, Royal Mail urges people not to click on links in text messages or emails that they think might be fraudulent or are not sure about, especially if they ask for financial information.
It warns that links might attempt to install malware onto your computer.
It also warned people never to send “sensitive, personal information, security details or credit card numbers by email”.
The Royal Mail website offers the following guidance on spotting fraudulent emails or messages:
“Check at the top. Fraudsters often use subjects or greetings that are impersonal and general, like “Attention Royal Mail Customer”.
“They may use a forged email address in the “from” field like “delivery@royalmail.com”.
“They may even use the Royal Mail logo. None of this guarantees the email has come from us.”
It also said that while the sender, subject and content may, scams often:
- state there’s a parcel waiting to be collected
- ask for payment before an item can be released for delivery
- prompts you to open a link or document
- asks you to send a text message or call a phone premium rate phone number
Royal Mail provides plenty more information on scams to be aware that pretend to be associated with the postal service, on its website here. Spam texts can be reported to phone service providers free of charge by forwarding them to 7726.
