Fake managers of the well-known parcel delivery companies UPS and FedEx are committing online scams in Puerto Rico, reports the Unit for the Detection of Fraudulent Schemes against the Consumer of that country.
Amy Nofziger, director of Victim Support for the Anti-Fraud Network, clarified that we are more likely to be targets of this type of fraud related to delivery services, when we have just shipped or are expecting a package, “they take advantage of emotions, and their need to receive those articles by mail, to get them to click on the link”.
The customer in question receives one or more messages informing that his package was sent by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), UPS0 FedEx could not be delivered due to problems with the address, insufficient postage or some impossibility for delivery. Below a link offers corrections to the postal management, which may be to provide more information by the customer, purchase additional postage or reschedule delivery.
Lisoannette González Ruíz, acting secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO), reported that these scams use the logos of U.S. parcel delivery companies and identical designs of their marketing sites, making it almost impossible to discover any clues that would alert consumers that they are being scammed.
“That email also details that the reason the package has not been delivered is that it incurred typical additional costs of less than two dollars, urging the consumer to click on a link they provide to do the something and then, thus, receive the package,” González Ruiz told the media.
In this sense, the confident customer ends up providing the required information or paying the surcharge, which is always a very small figure. When the transfer is completed, a much larger amount of money than advertised will have been withdrawn from the customer’s card. There are reported cases of customers paying 99 cents and getting $400 taken out of their account.
This is one of many examples of the scams that have been set up online in Puerto Rico, most of them based on fake text messages on delivery services.
“Smishing” scams are those carried out through text messages or SMS and e-mails. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), up to $330 million is lost in the United States due to this type of scams, doubling the losses in 2021. Among SMS scams, those related to fake portal services were the third most common, behind bank texts and promises of gifts or prizes.
“We reiterate our call to consumers to be well aware of this type of email. If you buy any goods online, it is the supplier who has to inform about the data of the packages. Check with them first,” added González Ruíz.
In December 2022, DACO created the Unit for the Detection of Fraudulent Schemes against Consumers, in response to the high level of scams that were circulating through the networks, allowing its confrontation and the systematic provision of information to the public.