Nearly two-thirds of consumers have been targeted with a text delivery scam, according to new research from Which?
In a survey of more than 2,000 customers in May, Which? found that 61% of those surveyed had received a text claiming to be from a delivery company in the past year.
The scam most reported to Which? in the past three months has been fake text messages from the Royal Mail. These warn that a parcel couldn’t be delivered and request a small fee for re-delivery, linking consumers to a copycat Royal Mail website for payment. Victims are then targeted by phone by scammers for follow-up payments.
Most consumers are now alert to such scams, with four out of five of those who had received a scam delivery text realising it was fake straightaway. However that leaves a fifth that are falling victim.
Incidents of text message scams have grown in the past year, thanks to the massive increase in online shopping.
Al Gerrie, founder and CEO of ZigZag says that there need to be better education to prevent consumers falling victim to delivery scams. “Seeing the news of delivery text scams making the headlines recently, it’s outrageous that scammers are getting away with this, particularly after all the progress that has been made in ecommerce during the pandemic,” he told eDelivery.net earlier this month.
