scam
Received a parcel delivery SMS? Beware of rip-offs
12/19/2024 – 1:24 p.mReading time: 2 min.
In the weeks before Christmas, business is booming everywhere. Parcels and parcels are now being sent like never before. Fraudsters take advantage of this.
When consumers order gifts online before the holidays and wait for packages, then fraudsters are in high demand. Criminals try to trap their victims with fraudulent text messages in the weeks before Christmas. There are many different variants, warns the consumer advice center: “But it always involves the delivery of a package: many cell phone users are bothered by SMS messages that supposedly come from parcel services. Each time they contain a link to strange websites.”
The intention behind it? Some aim to spread malicious apps that read data and send masses of SMS to saved contacts – as the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office warns, for example. Others want to lure unsuspecting victims into subscription traps.
The message shown below is currently in widespread circulation and was sent from a telephone number with the country code for Estonia. Under no circumstances should you go to the Internet address mentioned, warn consumer advocates, and delete the message.
But how do fraudsters even get phone numbers? For example, they could have been stolen from hacked databases or come into the possession of criminals through dubious address trading, according to consumer advocates. This address trade is “fed”, for example, by participating in false competitions on Facebook and Instagram, via SMS or Messenger.