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A text scam asking for Royal Mail ‘shipping’ fees has begun circulating across the UK – potentially putting sensitive information, including full banking details at risk.
The bogus text warns the phone-owner reads ‘your shipment could not be delivery because the Shipping fee not paid Please confirm here’ before a link.
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Alongside the obvious spelling and grammar errors in the message, the link the text is followed by is not an official Royal Mail website address.
One person in Glasgow who received the text told GlasgowLive: “Fortunately I’m clued up enough to have realised that it was fake, mainly because of the mistakes in the text and the fact it wasn’t an official link.
(Image: Glasgow Live)
“However, it makes me worry for people who aren’t tech-savvy etc. who may think it’s legitimate and hand over their personal details to a scammer.”
Hannah Hart, Digital Privacy Expert at ProPrivacy, says Brits should be on the watch for delivery scams, posting, “SMS phishing, also called smishing, has become a recurring nuisance in 2021. In fact, according to Which?, three in five people have received a fake delivery text in the last year.”
“Ultimately, the scammers behind smishing attempts will try to get you to click on a link by preying on your sense of urgency or panic. The fake delivery texts frequently claim that a victim has a package waiting to be collected or an unpaid fee – exactly the thing which might spur a target into clicking a link without taking time to determine if it’s legitimate.”
Anyone who receives a suspicious email, text message, phone call, or discovers a Royal Mail-branded website that they believe is fraudulent should report it to reportascam@royalmail.com.
