Consumer Alert
Fake shipping notification emails and text messages: What you need to know this holiday season
When you order something online, you might get several emails or text messages about your order: Confirming your order. Telling you it shipped. Saying it's out for delivery. Notifying you about delivery. Did you know that scammers send fake package shipment and delivery notifications to try to steal people's personal information — not just at the holidays, but all year long? Here's what you need to know to protect yourself from these scams.
The bogus stories the scammers deliver
The scammers send bogus messages by email or text. The message might say that you missed a delivery attempt and ask you to click on a link to re-schedule the delivery. Or it could say that your item is ready to ship but you need to update your shipping preferences. Some create a sense of urgency by saying if you don’t respond right away, they'll return your package to the sender.
They want you to click on the link without thinking about it and enter your personal or financial information. But the site is fake. A look-alike of a real website. And it’ll capture all the information you enter. The link could also install harmful malware on your phone or computer that steals your information. Things like your usernames and passwords to your online banking, email, or social media accounts that scammers could use to steal your identity and open new accounts in your name.
What to do
- If you get a message about an unexpected package delivery that tells you to click on a link for some reason, don’t click.
- If you think the message might be legitimate, contact the shipping company using a phone number or website you know is real. Don’t use the information in the message.
- If you think it could be about something you recently ordered, go to the site where you bought the item and look up the shipping and delivery status there.
- No matter the time of year, it always pays to protect your personal information. Check out these resources to help you weed out spam text messages, phishing emails, and unwanted calls.
(View or share the YouTube version of the video.)
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.
This isn't about UPS, but it is similar. My sister sent me a surprise present via FedEx, but she made a typo in my street number.
I got a phone call from them saying to bring my ID to their service center and pick it up. And, yes, they did say that if it remained at the service center, they would return it after three days. But that's legitimate, especially because the package included food items.
If they text or email you, don't fall for it.
It can be especially concerning, even suspicious, if this occurs within a few hours after purchasing something. I've seen this occur for several people. Makes me wonder if USPS has malware in their network tipping off scammers with cell phone numbers when orders come through. Or an inside job with someone who has access to shipping information and providing it to scammers, for extra income.
I tried to delete the message but was instead sent to group conversation text