Yahoo Finance Royal Mail warning over fake texts that are part of an elaborate scam
Royal Mail has warned customers about texts suggesting they owe a fee for a parcel, which turn out to be part of an elaborate scam.
Potential victims receive a text message suggesting they owe a fee of a few pounds or risk losing the delivery. A link then takes them to a webpage where they are asked for their bank details.
Royal Mail said that if a fee is due on any parcel then a grey card is left at the delivery address. Texts and emails are only sent when requested by a customer using tracked deliveries.
If this scam is successful, the victim’s personal details are then used to attempt further thefts, often using the original scam as a pretext for warning the victim that their details are in the hands of crooks.
This is what happened to actress Emmeline Hartley, who said on Twitter that after handing over her bank details to pay the fictitious postage fee, she was rung by someone pretending to be from her bank, informing her that there had been an attempt to use her details.
A fraudster persuaded her to transfer the contents of her current account into a new account using small enough sums not to trigger a warning at her bank. She only realised something was wrong when the crook asked her to transfer the contents of her overdraft.
I mentioned yesterday that I’d been scammed out of every penny I had. Thought I’d post what happened in case it helps anyone avoid being in the same position. Please save the lectures, I don’t think it’s possible for me to feel any stupider 🤦🏻♀️ #royalmailscam #safeaccountscam pic.twitter.com/YRrh8W6uje
— Emmeline Hartley (@EmmelineHartley) March 21, 2021
In this instance, the fraudster was careful not to say a safe account was being used, as this particular trick is known as a safe account scam. It shows how sophisticated quite a well-known scam has become. It relies on persuading an account holder to actively send money to an account held by criminals.
A new agreement between many banks means customers can be warned if a name and account details do not match, as they would not have done here. But the receiving bank, Clydesdale, has not yet signed up to this arrangement.
Clydesdale declined to comment on the individual case but said it planned to introduce confirmation of payees later this year.
The ruse is also used to rob people of large sums including home deposits that should be destined to a solicitor’s bank account, and in romance scams, where fraudsters gain the trust of a mark to persuade them to make loans.
Ms Hartley's bank Barclays said: “Following an investigation of this case, it is evident that our customer has been the unfortunate victim of a very sophisticated scam. We have provided the customer with a full refund of the amount that was lost.”
A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Royal Mail will only send email and SMS notifications to customers in cases where the sender has requested this when using our trackable products that offer this service."
