Royal Mail scam

Be on the watch everyone . I received a scam text message this morning purporting to be from the Royal Mail. It reads:

Royal Mail:Your package has a £2.99 shipping fee, to pay this now visit (http:/.......). Actions will be taken if you do not pay this fee

Naughty scam - taking advantage of Brexit; lock down and people's fear of 'action being taken'.

I don't use Royal Mail for parcels - I've found that their service is poor.

 

Thanks for letting me know @clanless
I have things like that a lot I don't bother opening them because I know that i haven't bought anything.
I kept having one for a TV licence but i don't pay for that hubby does.

 

I have been having similar from DHL.

 

These kind of scams are rife at the moment, the trouble is some are very easy to detect as fake while others look like they have genuinely been sent via the courier.

It was reported that 35 people fell victim to a similar scam via DPD, which resulted in them losing £103,000.

There is a lot of racketeering going on out there at the moment. It started early in 2020 when news of the virus was first being reported. The likes of face masks and hand sanitiser was changing hands for silly money online. During lockdown 60 litre bags of compost were changing hands on the like of Ebay and Amazon for £25. Ebay reported they had over 50,000 new registrations to sell on their platform in April alone. The trouble is many of these are just drop shippers selling at inflated prices. The problem is people think they are business's, when all they are is someone working from home using the ecommerce platforms to make money.

 

I had a HMRC tax refund message scam last week, if it was a genuine refund, as I have had before, they would send a letter.

 

Oh yes, I had that too. You jest surely as my Pension is not enough to attract income tax.

 

It is the same over here. The tax man will take you to jail if you don't send a money through western union or buy gift cards and assign them. Unfortunately the people most taken by these scams are newcomers who don't know that the government does not operate that way.

We also have people getting taken with scams for non existent jabs. Pay this and you get your jab right away. Of course that is total rubbish but I don't know if I feel sorry for those who get taken by thinking that they can jump the kew by greasing some palms....

 

we had police, hmrc and bt scams

 

Don't seem to get the old Readers Digest scams through the post any more.
You have already won a prize etc.

 

I thought Readers Digest was now defunct?
Anybody who phones you up trying to give you something or take something away, is 99% certainly a scam. Just put the phone down immediately. If anything is important (doubtful) they will contact you again.

 

Very true. I've been waiting for a 48 hour delivery parcel since 4th February. I avoid sellers who use Royal Mail.

 

I just had "We were unable to retrieve payment of the shipping fee for your package. Please visit // royalmail.package-delivery .co.uk /" on phone.
Number now blocked, definite scam according to my searches.