With the last date for ordering online for Christmas upon us, many people will by relying on the postman and Royal Mail to get our parcels to us in time to be wrapped-up and put under the tree – but be careful as a new scam falsely using Royal Mail’s name could leave you with an empty bank account.
On the customer help centre section of the Royal Mail website, there is a list of known scams that are currently in circulation.
The newest of which being a personalised text message that says an item is waiting to be collected by you.
The text message reads, “There is an item waiting to be collected by [your name]. You took one of the spots on your Currys’ XMAS-list.”
Included in the text is also a link. DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK.
If you do, it will take you to a website which looks similar to a Currys/PC World page with a pop up that says;
“Approved! Your selected iPhone 11 Pro will be delivered within 5 working days. Please confirm your delivery address and pay a small fee (£2) for insured shipping.”
Clicking confirm on this pop-up will prompt you to give away your personal details including address and card details.
What to do if you receive a scam text
The reason that the scam looks so convincing is that the text message appears in the same message thread if you’ve already had one with Royal Mail regarding legitimate deliveries.
If you’ve received this fraudulent text message, then you should let Royal Mail know by reporting it on their website by downloading their form here and emailing it to scam.mail@royalmail.com.
You can also report it to Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting centre.
