Christmas shopping scams to watch out for

Shoppers are being warned about fraudulent messages being sent out by scammers pretending to be from parcel delivery companies and online purchasing sites.

One of the scams involves a card being posted through your door from a company called Parcel Delivery Service  – PDS – or that may change over time. The message on the card states that they were unable to deliver a parcel and that you need to contact them on 0906 6611911 – a Premium rate number. Calling this number will result in a huge phone bill – a proportion of which goes straight to the scammers.

If you receive a card like this contact Royal Mail Parcel Delivery Fraud on 020 7239 6655.

For more information, see the Crime Stoppers website: https://crimestoppers-uk.org

In another Royal Mail scam people have been sent messages with links purporting to be from Royal Mail, Amazon and DHL but police are warning it is a scam to acquire the victim’s bank details.

A police spokesman said: “It is made to look like it is from or associated to the Royal Mail, after clicking the link it asks for bank details. Similar type of messages are being sent pretending to be from other delivery companies like Amazon, DHL and UPS. It is very easy to fall for these type of scams especially if you have been a recent customer of an online store.”

“If you need to query the company then use Google to find the company’s actual website to check your account/tracking number with them.”

Action Fraud, the national cyber crime reporting centre, is also warning people that the latest Amazon fraud has seen victims lose over £400,000.

Unsuspecting members of the public are being mercilessly targeted with automated calls which tell them a fraudster has used their personal details to sign up for an Amazon Prime subscription.

The victim is then instructed to press 1 to cancel the transaction. When they do this, they are directly connected to the real scammer who poses as an Amazon customer service representative.

Other variants of the crime involve victims being told they are due a refund for an unauthorised transaction on their Amazon account.

Pauline Smith, Head of Action Fraud, said: “If you’ve received an unexpected phone call, or other communication, stop and take a minute to think about whether an organisation would get in touch with you out of the blue in this way.”

If you have any elderly or vulnerable friends, relations or neighbours make them aware that scammers are about.