Fake Delivery Notification Texts Explained
Launch library · evergreen read
A text message arrives claiming a parcel could not be delivered, with a small fee apparently required to reschedule delivery or release it through customs somewhere along the way. The link provided leads to a page carefully designed to look like a genuine courier's website, asking for full card details to cover a charge worth only a handful of dollars.
The deliberately small amount involved is no accident. A modest, unremarkable fee feels easy to dismiss and pay quickly without much real thought, yet the page exists purely to capture your card number, its expiry date and its security code for later use somewhere else entirely by the scammer.
Genuine couriers rarely, if ever, request payment by text link for standard, routine deliveries, and they typically reference a specific order or tracking number that actually matches something you remember purchasing recently. A vague message about an unnamed, unspecified parcel is usually a fairly clear tell of a scam.
If you are genuinely expecting a delivery, check the courier's own official app or website directly rather than tapping the link included in the text message itself. If you are not expecting anything at all, the safest and simplest response is to delete the message without engaging with it any further.