SCAM ALERTS - BE AWARE

LMatrixx on 09/12/2022 - 14:07

Hey Guys, just wanted to pass this along as it's currently happening a lot in NZ, just wanna alert everyone since we mainly use this site for all the sale purchases and etc.

A scam clever enough to catch many people off guard

The following is a recounting of the incident from the victim:

Wednesday a week ago, I had a phone call from someone saying that he was from some outfit called: "Express Couriers," (The name could be any courier company). He asked if I was going to be home because there was a package for me that required a signature.

The caller said that the delivery would arrive at my home in approximately an hour. Sure enough, about an hour later, a uniformed delivery man turned up with a beautiful basket of flowers and a bottle of wine. I was very surprised, since there was no special occasion or holiday, and I, certainly, didn't expect anything like it. Intrigued, I inquired as to who the sender was.

The courier replied, "I don't know, I'm only delivering the package."

Apparently, a greeting card was being sent separately. (The card has never arrived!) There was also a consignment note with the gift.

He then went on to explain that because the gift contained alcohol, there was a $3.50 "delivery/ verification charge," providing proof that he actually had delivered the package to an adult (of legal drinking age), and not just left it on the doorstep where it could be stolen or taken by anyone, especially a minor.

This sounded logical and I offered to pay him cash. He then said that the delivery company required payment to be by credit or debit card only, so that everything is properly accounted for, and this would help in keeping a legal record of the transaction.

He added, "Couriers don't carry cash to avoid loss or being, likely, targets for robbery."

My husband, who by this time was standing beside me, pulled out his credit card, and the "delivery man," asked him to swipe the card on a small mobile card machine with a small screen and keypad. Frank, my husband, was asked to enter his PIN number and a receipt was printed out. He was given a copy of the transaction.

The guy said everything was in order, and wished us good day, and left.

To our horrible surprise, between Thursday and the following Monday, $4,000 had been charged/withdrawn from our credit/debit account at various ATM machines.

Apparently, the "mobile credit card machine," which the deliveryman carried, now, had all the info necessary to create a "dummy" card with all our card details including the PIN number.

Upon finding out about the illegal transactions on our card, we, immediately, notified the bank which issued us a new card, and our credit/debit account was closed.

We, also, personally, went to the police, where it was confirmed that it is, definitely, a scam because several households had been similarly hit.

WARNING: Be wary of accepting any "surprise gift or package," which you neither expected nor personally ordered, especially if it involves any kind of payment as a condition of receiving the gift or package. Also, never accept anything if you do not, personally, know or there is no proper identification of who the sender is.

General Discussion

Comments

  • Bill on 09/12/2022 - 14:51
    +1

    This is a very interesting scam. Its refinement is chilling and surprising. There are not any particularly obvious red flags. Additional cost of age verification is actually real.

    Main red flags are, all delivery costs are typically the onus of the sender, not the receiver. And few couriers will deliver a gift basket in their hands, it should be in a box etc and its contents not visible to the receiver.

    I would also be concerned on how a phone number was obtained with a matching address.

  • akrotohur on 09/12/2022 - 15:12

    Thanks for sharing. Yeah, that asking for payment part seems to be a common scam practice, although this looks like a new way of how it's "packaged". I personally would ask them to take that parcel away if they want any additional payment.

    Any obvious links on where your details could have been leaked? For them to know both your phone number and address, it does sound like your details are leaked from somewhere.

    • Alan6984 on 09/12/2022 - 16:48
      +1

      This is correct.

      If you are asked for an 'additional payment' to receive the goods, just say, 'No thanks' (unless you have agreed to this in advance perhaps, but that has never happened to me).

      It is up to the sender to verify the age of the recipient (if required or desired), and any costs should be covered by the sender (and on-charged to the customer as part of the sale, at least implicitly, if not explicitly - exactly the same as any delivery costs), not borne by the recipient at the time of receipt.

  • taneb1 on 09/12/2022 - 18:11
    +10

    This story has been floating around the internet since 2008 - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/delivery-courier-scam/

    • ABCDEFG on 09/12/2022 - 18:31
      +3

      Was going to say the same thing. It reads like something my Mum would re-share on facebook.

    • The Hound on 09/12/2022 - 20:54
      +1

      Scammers nowadays are more sophisticated than this, and will most likely get you to hand over your online banking password over the phone. No need to drive a van to your place and shit.

    • Nil Einne on 12/12/2022 - 06:05
      +2

      According to that it's something that really happened in Australia in 2008. I was going to say maybe they're another 501 deportee, but it seems they or someone actually already tried the same thing in 2008 here too https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/bogus-courier-may-have-stolen-…

  • Aaron on 09/12/2022 - 20:16
    +4

    I ain't giving you no treefiddy you goddam Loch Ness monster

  • manu b on 09/12/2022 - 23:03
    +2

    Thanks for starting this thread, I thought I will share my experience from 2 nights ago.

    I saw a good deal for a second hand mobile phone on trademe, the seller was brand new and sounded legitimate for example he/she allowed pickups, had receipts for the items etc etc. The mobile I was purchasing was about $200 cheaper then some of the others on sale at the same time.

    I put in an offer which was immediately accepted. I asked the seller to send me the receipts to confirm it was under warranty and all.

    Within few minutes I was supplied with receipts, now red flags started coming up here the receipt had a date of November and the seller answered an earlier question saying they purchased in September, the invoice was printed at noel leeming Papakura and seller was based in tokoroa (all the personal info was removed from the invoice another red flag, if it's your phone and you are allowing pick ups what's their to hide)

    I then asked seller for the bank account, which was again supplies promptly, instead of making the payment online I went to the local bank branch to confirm if the account owner matched the name I was provided (Hamish L Boyd) the back quickly confirmed that the account name did not match the number I provided.

    I put these questions all in an email back to the seller and within seconds the listing was up again on trademe with a new name "Daniel", now I knew that someone else was going to get scammed so how I stop this guy and I lodged a review with trademe and luckily they were able to remove the listing and disable the seller.

    Lesson learnt, never buy from a new seller, do a bit of due diligence before send the money and if you have a gut feeling that something isn't right don't transfer the funds online.

    Just putting it out there to ensure no one else gets targeted by these nasty people out there.

    • Foodie on 10/12/2022 - 01:49
      +1

      How does anyone become a seller if they havent done a sell before?
      Thats like asking someone to apply for an entry level job with 10 years experience.

      Sounds like you did really good due diligence checks and people should be always be wary, if things dont seem right, generally they arent.

  • [Deactivated] on 10/12/2022 - 02:41

    Trade Me don't do nearly enough to stop scammers from operating on their site. I've reported listings at 9pm at night that I knew were scams that have only been removed from the site 12 hours later. I've had an international scammer blacklist me from every new scam account they make so I can't ask questions or use Buy Now on their scam listings, and I watched two people buy scam listings last weekend nearly 6 hours after I'd reported both listings to Trade Me. If Live Chat is closed then it takes Trade Me forever to do anything about scam listings once they've been reported and the scammers know it, so many scam listings get listed late at night when Live Chat is closed.

    I don't know why Trade Me doesn't require every new account to deposit $10 into their account before they can list anything, it would deter a lot of international scammers because they'd be losing $10 every time one of their scam accounts got shut down, plus it would leave an electronic trail to give to police if needed.

    There're other things they could do as well to protect their customers from scammers that would have little to no impact on genuine sellers, like if you're not address verified then you can only have Pay Now as a payment method. If you're not address verified then you can't do listings with Buy Nows, these scammers rely on people buying their listings asap because the longer a scam listing is live the higher the chances of it being detected.

    Trade Me won't do any of this though because they're apathetic to people being scammed on their site, you're not a victim of crime to them, you're just a number, and if you don't affect their bottom line then they don't give a F.

    • kiwical on 10/12/2022 - 08:23

      Some notes on your comments

      You do have to become authenticated to sell, but that is only $1.

      Address verification hasn't worked for years. If you think about the costs of it you can perhaps understand why. 5 million members. $1.50 these days to send a standard letter? That's $7.5million per year……. Instead what is needed is some form of ID verification that can be done by automated systems. (Scan in drivers liscence, uitility bill or whatever) May other companies use these methods.

      paynow changed to ping a few years ago. There is pretty good buyer protection with ping. Always use ping to buy if you feel the seller is dodgy.

      Paying by bank deposit though is not really as risky as people make out. In New Zealand we have very robust bank security. While I'm not gonna say it's impossible, it would be very difficult indeed to open a bank account here with fake credentials. All accounts here link back to a real person. Pretty simple call from the police to the bank and those details are released to them.

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