One day last week early in the morning I received two SMS messages from a number that I don't know. It said a parcel of mine was on hold due to me having to pay some money and there was a link to click. The funny thing is I haven't ordered anything online recently and I wasn't expecting anything from anyone. So I got suspicious and did not click the link thinking it could be a virus. And then I started researching the company name in the massage. After a few searches, I found out that in 2022 the same company name was used to scam people. They used a real company name to scam people by typing it in a way that, it looks like the real company name.
I send an email to the real company that the scammers used in the message and asked whether the message is real or not. even though I knew it was a scamming attempt I wanted to get the attention of the company to the situation so they can do something to stop these things from happening again. after a few hours, they replied to me saying it was indeed a fake message and a thank you note for bringing this problem to their attention.
So, How You Can Stop Getting Scammed From Things Like This?
The first thing is to stop panicking and not clicking links with any suspicious messages. because those links can lead you to download malware or viruses. also, those links can lead you to phishing sites where threat actors will steal your credentials. Also not engaging in these scammy conversations is a great idea too. Even after ignoring them, if they still won't stop messaging you, you can simply block their number or you can complain to a law enforcement agency.
Another way to catch these parcel scammers is, you can go to Google and search for the official website that these scammers pretend to be and find the parcel tracking section and search for the tracking number you have received with the message. if nothing comes up then you know it's a fake message. also, you can get help from their official support team by emailing them. you can find the support email on the official website.
That's it for this article guys. thank you very much for reading and be safe out there!