The Federal Trade Commission is warning members of the public about fake package delivery scams.
Most of us have seen the fake emails or texts regarding an undelivered package but we did not order anything, so we knew the message was a fraud attempt. Fraudsters are also trying this with businesses. In this scheme, the fraudster will often call the business and advise an employee they are with a package delivery company. The say they have a package that the owner is expecting but the item has not been paid for and cannot be delivered until paid. They convince the employee they spoke to the owner and generally provide the owners name to appear legitimate. They request the employee to remove money from the register, safe or personal accounts to cover the amount owed. The fraudster then has the employee obtain gift cards and read off the numbers or send money via a wire transfer or virtual currency. Once the employee speaks to the actual owner, they learn of the scam and the money is gone.
The fraudsters use a variety of tactics to include spoofing (where they make it appear the phone call was placed from the actual company) and social engineering. Social engineering occurs when the fraudster uses information known or publicly available (websites, social media accounts, etc.) to convince you they are who they say they are in order to obtain confidential or personal information about you or the business to further the fraudulent scheme.
The FTC offers tips to avoid package delivery scams:
Be wary of unsolicited phone calls – Package delivery companies will not call you and request personal, business or package information from you. A legitimate company should be able to tell you the tracking number that you can confirm on your own.
Never give personal information to strangers – Many times the fraudster is friendly but if they are requesting personal information that is a RED FLAG – HANG UP. You can look up a customer service number on your own and contact the company yourself to confirm.
Slow down – Fraudsters will generally try to keep you on the phone so you cannot contact someone else to verify if the request is legitimate.
They will apply a large amount of pressure to deal with the situation immediately.
A person who has information of a phone scam should consider reporting that information to the Federal Trade Commission at https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/