If you receive a text or email stating that a package was not deliverable and the carrier needs to update your address, beware, it’s a phishing scam!
There are many versions of this scam, sometimes they may make it appear you have to pay import duties, but the process is about the same.
Especially during the holiday season, it seems the phishing scam messages are even more prevalent as many recipients may incorrectly believe they are receiving a package from a family member or friend that had their address wrong.
To show you how this phishing scam works, here are screenshots from a text message I received this month. I followed through with the provided link (on a secure non-trackable browser on a VPN) and stopped right before the scammers wanted my credit card information.
The Text Message Phishing Scam
I am using an example of a text message as they are more common now with most email filters sending these types of phishing messages automatically to the junk or spam folder.
Note: I am using red blocks in these screenshots to hide some personal identifiable information that could be potentially a real but innocent person’s contact details.
In this first screenshot, you can easily see the first problem with the text message. Scammers usually try to disguise the carrier name slightly to avoid being detected as a possible phishing scam. In this case, they used US/PS to make it look like this could be from the US Postal Service (USPS).
I have received similar texts like this one…
