The holiday season is a time of year when we may receive more packages at our front door than at other times of year. And we probably will receive fake text messages (smishing) that claim there is a problem with a delivery and the delivery company (scammers) wants to verify some information or a fee needs to be paid to complete the delivery. Often there is a link to click on or there may be a phone number to call. This is a ploy to gather your personal information such as account username and password, or your credit card account number.
Scammers will impersonate the Postal Service (USPS), UPS, FEDEX, and Amazon. Each service has issued warnings about fake text messages and emails claiming to come from them and provide guidance to avoid the messages and how to report the attempted fraud to them.
Each delivery service offers advice on how you can protect yourself from this scam:
FEDEX-
· FEDEX does not ask for personal information from
consumers via email, mail, or text.
· Watch out for misspellings on the website and
its web address and email address such as fedx.com or fed-ex.com for its real
web address, fedex.com.
· Do not engage with a sender of a suspicious email.
· Report the fraud to abuse@fedex.com, 1-800-GeFedEx or 1-800-463-3339.
UPS-
·
Slow down if you receive a suspicious text
message or email. Scammers rely on rushing you with a sense of urgency to get
you to act without thinking.
·
Don’t click on any suspicious links. The legitimate
web address for UPS is ups.com.
·
Report fraudulent emails or texts to fraud@ups.com.
USPS-
·
USPS will not send emails or text messages
unless a customer has first requested the service and has provided a tracking
number.
·
For information about USPS Text Tracking go to https://www.usps.com/text-tracking/welcome.htm
·
Report fraudulent texts or emails to the US
Postal Inspection Service at spam@uspis.gov.
Amazon
· Occasionally, Amazon will send an email to a
customer with an attachment. The attachment should say "Attachment(s)
protected by Amazon."
·
Any message that requests payment information
not linked to an Amazon order you placed or an Amazon service, asks you to
install software on your device, is full of grammatical errors, or has a forged
email address that looks like it is from Amazon, is most likely a scam.
·
If Amazon contacts you via phone, email, or
text, it will not ask you to disclose your personal information nor will it
offer an unexpected refund.
·
Report suspicious emails or text messages on
Amazon’s Customer Service page.
FEDEX:
https://www.fedex.com/en-us/report-fraud.html
UPS:
https://www.ups.com/us/en/support/shipping-support/legal-terms-conditions/fight-fraud.page
US Postal Inspection Service:
https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/smishing-package-tracking-text-scams
Amazon:
https://us.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=T3MYikBay7swNeFqFo
USA Today:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/08/24/ups-fedex-usps-amazon-text-scam/70669131007/
Federal Trade Commission:
https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2020/02/text-message-about-your-fedex-package-really-scam
Federal Communications Commission:
https://www.fcc.gov/how-identify-and-avoid-package-delivery-scams
AARP:
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