It looks like a "shipment scam" mixed with "bait and switch". There are few ways you can get robbed:
- The "DHL" (not really) will say they have cash for you but they need to be paid for handling (or something like that). You pay the fee, get cash and realize it's fake. You lose the fee and the stuff.
- The "DHL" will contact you and tell you that you need to pay for additional fees before they send a courier with cash. You will get a nice invoice with a bank account via email. You pay and the driver never arrives.
- The courier arrives, says he knows nothing about money. The person (in a big hurry) will wire you a proof of payment. You give away your stuff and it's lost because the proof was fake.
- Similar to the one above. They will change their mind (for some reason) about payment and send you proof of payment for stuff and shipping. It turns into a regular shipping scam by now.
DHL (and to my knowledge, all delivery services in Europe) don't do payment before shipping. You can order Cash-on-Delivery. Never the other way around.
You can send money via couriers in the EU, but they don't offer a service like the one described in the question. It can be two different services linked together. So you can send money and after receiving them, the person to whom you sent can present the courier with a shipment back. Financial institutions that offer that service actually employ specialized and specially licensed security services.
(And with that in mind, it may be some sort of money laundering scam. You agree, then "police" show up at your door and tell you to cooperate. It's explained under this link: Fake police SCAM)
Answer from SZCZERZO KŁY on Stack ExchangeI usually wouldn’t believe something like this but it has my address and eBay username in it too so it’s really suspicious. Please someone help. Thanks!
It looks like a "shipment scam" mixed with "bait and switch". There are few ways you can get robbed:
- The "DHL" (not really) will say they have cash for you but they need to be paid for handling (or something like that). You pay the fee, get cash and realize it's fake. You lose the fee and the stuff.
- The "DHL" will contact you and tell you that you need to pay for additional fees before they send a courier with cash. You will get a nice invoice with a bank account via email. You pay and the driver never arrives.
- The courier arrives, says he knows nothing about money. The person (in a big hurry) will wire you a proof of payment. You give away your stuff and it's lost because the proof was fake.
- Similar to the one above. They will change their mind (for some reason) about payment and send you proof of payment for stuff and shipping. It turns into a regular shipping scam by now.
DHL (and to my knowledge, all delivery services in Europe) don't do payment before shipping. You can order Cash-on-Delivery. Never the other way around.
You can send money via couriers in the EU, but they don't offer a service like the one described in the question. It can be two different services linked together. So you can send money and after receiving them, the person to whom you sent can present the courier with a shipment back. Financial institutions that offer that service actually employ specialized and specially licensed security services.
(And with that in mind, it may be some sort of money laundering scam. You agree, then "police" show up at your door and tell you to cooperate. It's explained under this link: Fake police SCAM)
An uncle of mine fell for a variant of that scam last April. This is what happened in his case:
He had a 2nd hand Apple laptop for sale for 250 Euro and advertised it on Marktplaats (the Dutch equivalent to Craigslist).
Was promised a DHL swap. Envelope with the cash in exchange for the laptop. (He wasn't aware DHL doesn't do that sort of thing.)
A white mini-van comes to his house. Here in The Netherlands DHL uses a lot of independent sub-contractors that use their own cars/vans without DHL logo. So that is by itself not unusual. (Does that happen in France, too?)
The driver wears a yellow and red jacket and baseball-cap that looks like the DHL colors.
The driver gives the sealed envelope to my uncle. He opens the envelope and sees 5 bills of 50 Euro, which appears OK.
The driver presents a clipboard with a printed form that my uncle needs to sign for accepting the "swap". Seems very official, but he is a bit old-school and isn't aware that all transport firms these days use phones or handhelds computers with a fully digital order tracking system. So, my uncle signs the form, hands over the box with the laptop and the driver loads it in the mini-van and drives away.
A day later my uncle tries to pay for something in a shop with one of those 50 Euro bills and discovers they are fakes. Pretty good fakes, but still fakes.
According to the police-officer he talked to this is a fairly common scam. They specifically target elderly people (they estimate age from the sellers profile on the market-place website or an associated Facebook profile) with a low sales-ratio (or even better: 1st time seller). They hope that an elderly and hopefully inexperienced seller isn't that familiar with shipping company policies and way of working. They try to get some more info on the seller via their initial contact to confirm how savvy the seller is about this. Contact goes by (burner)-phone or throw-away email address. If the seller appears too savvy they will quickly cancel the deal.
And in case of my uncle they got it completely right. It was his first online sale ever and his only previous experience with DHL (or any other shipping firm) was just receiving of goods.
The reason I ask is because while I am expecting a package, I've never ever received a text like this from any courier service before. When I click the link it takes me to a website that asks for my info, address, and then my credit card details.
While I do want my package this is setting off ALL my alarm bells for being a credit card scam. I tried clicking the links at the bottom of the page and they all redirect to the opening page, so none of them actually work. None of the link to the social media pages work either.
Not to mention the fact that the text I received has a time pressure to it and if I don't the package will be returned to sender.
It's all so incredibly fishy that I'm not sure what to do with it even though I am expecting a package from them. Any advice on what I should do next would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! 🙏
I’m expecting a package but this is my first time delivering with dhl. I’m in Canada, I don’t get why they would send me a message for me to pay rather then just make me pay at the door ? But they’re persistent lol they sent me like 3 messages to get me to pay. I just want my package. Blocked out is the tracking number and link, if it’s fake I’m surprised they got my tracking number