Brexit - Customs Scam

I had to pay approx €15 on a €45 package received from the UK today.

Approx €10 customs and €5 what I think was a DHL admin payment. That's not the purpose of the message.

I was told about the €15 charge by a DHL text. I paid it. However, I was then sent another text from another courier company requesting a customs charge of €1.99 to complete the delivery.

Even though I was clearly expecting a package I thought I had already paid the customs. I rang DHL and this is a known scam. When I asked them about the coincidence of this text for payment around the time of paying DHL they said this is a known issue and their security are working on it.

So, these scammer know their stuff and seem to have infiltrated DHL and while not a lot of money I'd have been raging if I had paid and got caught.

Atlantic Dawn

How did you pay? I'd double check they have not now compromised your debit card or bank account.

Atlantic Dawn

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

How did you pay? I'd double check they have not now compromised your debit card or bank account.

I paid DHL by Debit Card. This amount was expected by DHL. But, how they knew that I was due a package from DHL is scary. DHL are aware of it though.

Hopefully they knew I was expecting a delivery from DHL, but didn't get my Debit card details.

punisher5112

DHL should put this in their contacts such as text or email that they send to the customer or receiver of goods.

punisher5112

punisher5112 wrote: »

DHL should put this in their contacts such as text or email that they send to the customer or receiver of goods.

They said they knew about it back in December, but thought they had it sorted. I only got through to Customer sales, the only person I could get to talk to, but she was familiar with it.

What with brexit this is going to be new to people AND become a lot more common.

Ishmael

Was your phone number printed on the outside of the delivery box? Potentially anyone handling the package along the way could be mining the numbers as they pass through if that was the case.

Seth Brundle

Deleted User wrote: »

Even though I was clearly expecting a package I thought I had already paid the customs. I rang DHL and this is a known scam. When I asked them about the coincidence of this text for payment around the time of paying DHL they said this is a known issue and their security are working on it.

So, these scammer know their stuff and seem to have infiltrated DHL and while not a lot of money I'd have been raging if I had paid and got caught.

Were you targeted directly as a customer of DHL at the time or was it coincidental?
DHL telling you that their security are investigating it could either be them fobbing you off or simply that they are trying to close down a scammer that has nothing to do with them (or indeed they may have been compromised). I'd be surprised if they confirmed that their systems were currently compromised though.
I suspect that it may just be them being pro-active in terms of scammers out there (and DHL have not been compromised)...
https://www.dhl.com/ie-en/home/footer/fraud-awareness.html

https://sensorstechforum.com/dhl-phishing-scams-get-rid/#:~:text=If%20you%20see%20a%20suspicious,quite%20widespread%20across%20the%20World.

Seth Brundle

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Were you targeted directly as a customer of DHL at the time or was it coincidental?
DHL telling you that their security are investigating it could either be them fobbing you off or simply that they are trying to close down a scammer that has nothing to do with them (or indeed they may have been compromised). I'd be surprised if they confirmed that their systems were currently compromised though.
I suspect that it may just be them being pro-active in terms of scammers out there (and DHL have not been compromised)...
https://www.dhl.com/ie-en/home/footer/fraud-awareness.html

https://sensorstechforum.com/dhl-phishing-scams-get-rid/#:~:text=If%20you%20see%20a%20suspicious,quite%20widespread%20across%20the%20World.

I took it that DHL's systems were compromised. It wasn't a second DHL text. It was another company. I've deleted the text now, so cant recall.

I can only reply with what she said when I said it was a coincidence, that they knew about this back in December, their security were looking into it and thought it was resolved. Other than that... I can't say for sure.

The scam text came in about 20 minutes after the DHL text.

Ishmael

Ishmael wrote: »

Was your phone number printed on the outside of the delivery box? Potentially anyone handling the package along the way could be mining the numbers as they pass through if that was the case.

Don't know, haven't received it yet. I would have thought this was automated though. Otherwise a lot of hassle for potentially €1.99.

Sarn

It might end up being more than €1.99 if they get your card details!

Sarn

Sarn wrote: »

It might end up being more than €1.99 if they get your card details!

TRUE!

TheChizler

People get those texts all the time, and presumably they'll be more common now. Chances are occasionally someone waiting on a real parcel will get one. I wouldn't worry too much about DHL being compromised.

AH, still have the scam website on my browser it linked to*. The scam company is called International Parcel Service (IPS)


* how likely is my phone compromised?

TheChizler

[Deleted User] wrote: »

TRUE!

Did you give them your card details?

Edit: I now see you didn't. I wouldn't worry about it.

j4vier

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I had to pay approx €15 on a €45 package received from the UK today.

Approx €10 customs and €5 what I think was a DHL admin payment. That's not the purpose of the message.

I was told about the €15 charge by a DHL text. I paid it. However, I was then sent another text from another courier company requesting a customs charge of €1.99 to complete the delivery.

Even though I was clearly expecting a package I thought I had already paid the customs. I rang DHL and this is a known scam. When I asked them about the coincidence of this text for payment around the time of paying DHL they said this is a known issue and their security are working on it.

So, these scammer know their stuff and seem to have infiltrated DHL and while not a lot of money I'd have been raging if I had paid and got caught.

Not limited to DHL.

Same happened to me in December, dodgy website requesting for 1.99.

In my case, it was not related to DHL but either anpost or DPD. Can't know for sure, got too many deliveries in those days to relate it to one or the other.

TheChizler

TheChizler wrote: »

Did you give them your card details?

Nope, but I did click on the link in the text and went to a website. I didn't proceed further.

j4vier

j4vier wrote: »

Not limited to DHL.

Same happened to me in December, dodgy website requesting for 1.99.

In my case, it was not related to DHL but either anpost or DPD. Can't know for sure, got too many deliveries in those days to relate it to one or the other.

That screen shot looks like it alright. Too much of a coincidence to be not connected. Although, they may have also have access to anpost or DPD as well.

TheChizler

[Deleted User] wrote: »

That screen shot looks like it alright. Too much of a coincidence to be not connected. Although, they may have also have access to anpost or DPD as well.

Coincidences are common when you spam hundreds of thousands of people with the same text.

atilladehun

I got that text before Christmas too. Wasn't DHL related. Either anpost or DPD

Gregor Samsa

It's a phishing scam (specifically "SMSishing"). The scammers don't have access to any DHL, DPD or An Post info -they don't really know anything about your delivery. They auto send out the text to thousands of random phone numbers, knowing that around Christmas (or during lockdown, or even any time of year) many or most people have deliveries coming. If you have a delivery on the way, then naturally you feel like it's associated with your delivery. But people with no deliveries pending get them too. It's like the "There's something wrong with your AIB bank account" texts. It doesn't mean AIB was compromised in any way, they send them randomly knowing that a good proportion of recipients will have one, and hope that they fall for it.


If the had compromised DHL or anyone else, they'd have the order number, who it's from, the amount, your name, address, etc. and they'd be able to make the scam even more convincing. But they don't.

arctictree

Bit off topic but how come anything I order off Amazon generally comes from China/Taiwan but I never have to pay customs charges? They are definitely not in the EU!

Gregor Samsa

arctictree wrote: »

Bit off topic but how come anything I order off Amazon generally comes from China/Taiwan but I never have to pay customs charges? They are definitely not in the EU!

There's loads of things that there is no customs charge for no matter where they're from, so it all depends on what you're buying. There's no customs duty at all on items under €150. Aside from customs duty, though, VAT would be due on any order over €22, but I think a lot of stuff over that threshold just slips though, mainly because the volumes of small packages coming though are too big to be dealing with.

biko

That extra cost of 1.99 might not arise suspicion in many people so they pay and move on.
Well done for spotting it OP!

cancel your card immediately OP. This is a known scam, I first heard about to two years ago.

OmegaGene

OmegaGene wrote: »

why would they cancel their card when they did not pay the scammers ?

I half read the OP, I thought they had paid this €1.99, I was in a hurry to warn him/her

No panic then so

CrazyFather1

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

It's a phishing scam (specifically "SMSishing"). The scammers don't have access to any DHL, DPD or An Post info -they don't really know anything about your delivery. They auto send out the text to thousands of random phone numbers, knowing that around Christmas (or during lockdown, or even any time of year) many or most people have deliveries coming. If you have a delivery on the way, then naturally you feel like it's associated with your delivery. But people with no deliveries pending get them too. It's like the "There's something wrong with your AIB bank account" texts. It doesn't mean AIB was compromised in any way, they send them randomly knowing that a good proportion of recipients will have one, and hope that they fall for it.


If the had compromised DHL or anyone else, they'd have the order number, who it's from, the amount, your name, address, etc. and they'd be able to make the scam even more convincing. But they don't.

They don't have to get access to the main system to know you are getting a delivery. Seems these people have hacked something to have this information.

IN a phishing exercise they will just bombard thousands/millions of numbers in the hope of getting a hit. Like the BOI/AIB texts you get all the time. If this is coming at the same time as a delivery then DHL have a breach somewhere along the chain.

Gregor Samsa

CrazyFather1 wrote: »

They don't have to get access to the main system to know you are getting a delivery. Seems these people have hacked something to have this information.

IN a phishing exercise they will just bombard thousands/millions of numbers in the hope of getting a hit. Like the BOI/AIB texts you get all the time. If this is coming at the same time as a delivery then DHL have a breach somewhere along the chain.

But they are bombarding loads of numbers. There's just so many people getting deliveries from DHL that to those people, it looks like it's related to the delivery. The're doing it with An Post, UPS, all the rest of the couriers too. There's no need to go to the trouble of hacking anything to pull off this scam.

It's definitely not the result of any hack. This scam has been going on since early last year, and using the names of other delivery companies too.

https://www.fraudsmart.ie/2020/03/12/fraudsmart-alert-undelivered-package-scam/

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2020/0828/1161847-an-post-warns-of-smishing-scam/

Here's an analysis from the US showing that it started trending there in December 2019

https://www.adaptivemobile.com/blog/package-delivery-sms-spam-delivering-messages-you-definitely-dont-want-to-open

WrenBoy

I ordered clothes for herself online before Christmas and got a text the next day saying " There is an update on your parcel. Item stopped due to unpaid customs fee. Follow the instructions here: <link>"

I was suspicious and didn't do it but was tempted just because it was close to Christmas, soon after I ordered online (very unlikely to be random) and I wanted to avoid any delays. Must have got access to my number through courier or the online store or intercepted info sharing between them. Can see how people would fall for it especially those who wouldn't be very tec savvy, not saying that applies to you OP.

weldoninhio

TheChizler wrote: »

Coincidences are common when you spam hundreds of thousands of people with the same text.

I used to get BOI texts, i'm not with them, they just spam batches of numbers at a time.

aziz

I’m ashamed to say that I fell for this scam before Christmas,was waiting on a package and I said to my wife that there could be a small custom charge as well,no more than a fiver.

Next day I get a text from ups saying to complete delivery of my item I would have to pay €1.99.
As I was rushing to go to work I just paid it. Sitting in work two hours after starting thinking it was a bit dodgy so I said it to a colleague and he said it’s a scam ,so I legged it to my bank and cancelled the card I used,To date nothing has been taken out of my account.

I’m usually careful of things like this but annoyed at myself for falling for this one &#55357;&#56868;