Sorry - what is the connection to the DPD van?
Who was the guy on the doorstep?
Good you caught it
Last Friday we were out shopping when we got an alert from our Ring Doorbell that someone was at the front door. Opened the app on my phone to see a guy with a parcel in hand and pulling a pad out of his pocket just as the video went dead. Entered live view but by that time he'd gone so wasn't able to use the voice feature.
We were expecting a couple of parcels so it seemed likely that was one of them, but nothing we could do so carried on shopping. When we got home at lunch time the Postman was at the door with a parcel for us, which was indeed one of the ones we were expecting. So when we let ourselves in we were expecting to find a card from the earlier delivery man, but no, nothing. Checked both sides of the house, (which are gated), but nothing pushed through either gate so assumed he'd either try to deliver again later or tomorrow.
But an hour later I got an email seemingly from Parcelforce. All the correct headers, layout etc, saying 'we tried to deliver your parcel earlier today, please click the button to rearrange delivery', so I clicked the button and started to fill out the details on the form - full name, address, mobile number, date of birth; DATE OF BIRTH? Why do they need my date of birth? And the next button is 'Click to go to payment'. PAYMENT? For rearranging a delivery? I smell a rat!
So I opened the Ring app and reviewed the whole video from earlier, and there at the end of our drive was a DPD van; so not an attempted Parcelforce delivery at all.
Scamming buggers! But I can see how easily someone could fall for it, especially if a delivery was expected, or, as in my case, an attempted delivery was known to have been made. I'm guessing that proceed to payment would provide the scammer with the remaining information they would need!
Be careful out there.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
Sorry - what is the connection to the DPD van?
Who was the guy on the doorstep?
Good you caught it
The attempted delivery was by DPD, the guy at the door was the DPD man. The DPD driver took my parcel round to our local Co-Op which is one of their collection points. Apparently DPD only make one delivery attempt and then take the parcel to a collection point. Quite why he took a pad out without leaving a note I don't know, but to collect a parcel from one of their collection points requires a QR Code, (emailed later by DPD), and photo ID.
The irony, for me, was that the parcel contained two security cameras.
I suspect that, in the lead-up to Christmas when many people will be ordering on-line, this scam will become very prevalent, hence my posting.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
I suspect the Parcelforce email and your DPD delivery aren't connected, just very unfortunate timing. Just glad you checked before sending any details.
Just wondering, when you hover over (not click) the spam Parcelforce email address, does it look correct, too?
Normally the email address will look correct on the face of it, but if you hover over it, it'll reveal the true incorrect email address.
This is just an example of a phishing scam ... they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
This is an example of how the email just happened to fit in with your events of the day as as such looked more plausible ...
This website has lots of good advice.
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/p...ams/spot-scams
This is the email, looks pucker on first viewing....
The Apple email app doesn't have the hover over feature, but it does have a drop down with several options including copy email address, which reveals....
Notifications-Q9MSK0U1YE@parcelforce.co.uk
Which again looks pucker
Hovering over the Book a Redelivery button reveals https://ssl.jazmineshop.website/. which appears to be a genuine on-line business, but clicking it goes to the spammers website made to look like Parcelforce.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
Yep - they are certainly convincing in their presentation ... that is how they catch so many people.
It is an industry with many capable IT staff... and virtually zero chance of getting caught as it all happens across international boarders ...
It is part of modern on-line life and I am sure they catch out many intelligent people who are in a rush or just happened to get an email which exactly fitted in with their circumstances ...
As you say beware ... if I look in my spam folder now it's got a number of phishing scams in there ...
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
It’s the timing, or pot luck timing to be more precise that will catch people out. A very clever friend of mine payed for his TV license online then a few hours later randomly he was sent the scam email regarding his tv licence payment….totally unconnected but he nearly fell for it.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
When I was a kid, my friends used to lambast me for being a pessimistic sceptic, but oh boy is it paying dividends now!
In Mail on a Mac, hover over any link and click the down arrow that appears to show the destination webpage.
In Mail on an iOS device, click and hold to show the destination webpage.
To be honest, the grammar on that email alone would tell me it's not genuine. Most scammers are not proficient with language.
Glad you didn't experience any loss from it.
So, despite the build up, this is just a phishing e-mail warning with no links to DPD. Still, good to repeat the phishing dangers. That said, the timing of some phishing e-mails (the few that get through) does always seem too perfect to me (i.e. they must have information on the other event).
Millions of people have deliveries every day, millions of phishing emails sent every day so the chances of of the 2 events corresponding are very high which is why the scam works so well.
Cheers,
Ben
..... for I have become the Jedi of flippers
" an extravagance is anything you buy that is of no earthly use to your wife "
+1 on the language observation, many scam e-mails seem to be written by illiterate dimwits, or crooks for whom the English language is perhaps not their native tongue. Or both. Some would even be quite amusing, were it not for the certainty some unfortunate person somewhere will probably not notice and fall for it.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Seems the gods proved me wrong on at least one phishing email purporting to be from Apple!
Email claims ApplePay is suspended until you verify your card, because your card is linked to more than one Apple device. It looks very professional and I couldn’t spot any obvious spelling or grammar mistakes.
I’m guessing it will catch a few out.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Not an email , but I had the text “Dad this is my new phone”……….scam the other day. As stated above its a numbers game , send out 100,000 messages for pennies if only 0.1% reply it paid for itself
Why even mention the DPD man and his attempted delivery? Thats a red herring and is sure to confuse people when reading your story.
Quite simply because he was part of a sequence of events that illustrated....
1. An attempted delivery happened
2. I knew an attempted delivery happened
3. It was then reasonable for me to initially assume that the email I received was genuine following 1. and 2.
4. Being puzzled by the request for my D.O.B. led me to review the doorbell video
5. And finally, that seeing the attempted delivery was by the DPD man meant that I now knew the email from 'Parcelforce' was a scam.
Of course, had the DPD man put a card through the door to the effect that 'DPD attempted a delivery at X am today and you'll get an email later telling you where it is and with a QR Code to retrieve it', then I would have known instantly that the 'Parcelforce' email was a scam.
I'm sure that there will be many other people who will experience a similar sequence of events, particularly at this time of year. And it is this sequence of events that is likely to catch people out.
HTH.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
Yes they are unconnected events - it's just that they blast out hundreds of thousands a day so some are going to be received by people expecting parcels.
I just treat all such requests as scams and ignore.
I expected a code recently and not seeing it in my inbox checked my junk mail, something I never usually look at - it was full of parcel type scams!
Cheers,
Neil.
This is often a deliberate ploy by the scammers - some of whom are very, very professional organised crime groups. They don't want to waste time and resources interacting with people who will have identified it as a scam; those who are taken in despite the poor spelling/grammar are more likely to end up giving the scammers money and/or personal details.