As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, online purchases have been increasing, which means that people who use these platforms may become victims of crime, something that seems difficult to avoid.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC, for its acronym in English) indicates that thousands of online buyers in the United States have received text messages, emails or calls with an order tracking number, indicating that the package was delayed. or could not be delivered, which is not true.
In fact, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that during 2022, the scam made with text messages about false package delivery problems was the most denounced in that year.
Scammers often send text messages posing as the US Postal Service, FedEx, Amazon, or UPS, attaching a link to a website that may appear legitimate but is not.
On that web page, the person is informed that they will have to pay a small forwarding fee; however, it is the hook for criminals to obtain the user’s credit card number and even personal information, such as their Social Security number.
The FTC emphasized that these types of scams have already cost US consumers $330 million in losses.
What to do to avoid falling for these text message scams
The main organizations and companies that have been affected by this situation have released a series of warnings and steps so that users can avoid being victims of this type of scam, which we present below.
FedEx Tips
On its website, it states that the company does not request personal information from its customers through an email, letter or text message, so if you receive any, you must act as follows:
Do not interact with the sender who sent you the message, and watch out for misspellings in website or email addresses, such as Fedx.com or Fed-ex.com, and general grammatical errors, exclamation points, and excessive capitalization in the message.
If you receive any suspicious messages, please contact 1-800-GoFedEx or 1-800-463-3339 or email abuse@fedex.com.
UPS Tips
UPS informs that in case they have to communicate with a customer, they make calls from the telephone number 1-833-242-1931 or, they will send text messages from the numbers 94601, 69877, 48515 or 52892.
Similarly, your emails will come from the following addresses: accountconfirm@ups.com, mcinfo@ups.com, pkginfo@ups.com, customer-notifications@ups.com, auto-notify@ups.com, emailinfo@ups .com, invoice -notification@ups.com, donotreply@ups.com, ups@emails.ups.com, ups@upsemail.com UPSAdministrationSupport@ups.com or no.reply@upsbilling.ups.com.
If you suspect that you are being the victim of fraud, please report it to fraud@ups.com.
USPS Tips
The first recommendation they make is to never open a link that comes from a suspicious email or text message. If you receive one, copy the message and email it to spam@uspis.gov. In the email, include your name, a screenshot of the text message showing the sender’s phone number, and the date it was sent.
It also includes some details, particularly whether you clicked on the link, lost money, or provided personal information.
You can also use USPS Text Message Tracking to monitor packages by texting 2USPS (28777) with your tracking number.
Amazon Tips
The best thing that customers can do is that through the Amazon page or app, they are aware of their orders, as well as their history. In addition, occasionally, they may send an email that has an attachment, which must say “Amazon-protected attachments.”
Also, legitimate Amazon websites have a dot before “amazon.com”, so pages with an IP like http://123.456.789.123/amazon.com should be ruled out.
Any message requesting payment information not linked to an Amazon order you have placed or to an Amazon service and requesting software to be installed on your device, or has grammatical errors or a forged email address that appears to be from Amazon, it is very likely that it is a scam.
Although Amazon may eventually contact its customers by phone, they are never asked to reveal or verify sensitive personal information, nor do they offer refunds.
In the same way, they ask to be attentive to the so-called “brushing scams”, which consist of customers asking for a package from an order that they did not place. This just means that someone else has your personal information and intends to use it for other purposes.
Where to report these types of scams
The FTC indicates that these messages can be forwarded to 7726 (SPAM), which will help your telephone service provider help you block messages from that number. Similarly, you can file a complaint online at ftc.gov/complaint.
If you are a victim of one of these crimes and have lost money or personal information, file a report with local authorities and with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at https://www.ic3.gov/complaint.
Keep reading:
* 5 ways in which you can be the victim of a hacker or scam on WhatsApp
* 3 ways to identify if a review of a product or service on the internet is false
* Avoid scams and identity theft when buying back-to-school items