Is this a scam? - royal mail

[Andypromqueen]

Just received a text saying “your Royal Mail parcel is waiting for delivery. Please confirm the settlement of £2.99(GBP) by clicking on the following link: https:bit.ly......”
I have several parcels waiting to be delivered as it’s that time of year but as far as I know I’ve paid the delivery when placing the orders. Thoughts?

which obvs has my card details stored in it so I guess just by simply pressing on the link they could empty my bank account!!

No, it’s not that easy. They couldn’t have cleared your bank account just by you clicking on the link.

But yes, it is obviously a scam.

You can send the URL to ActionFraud.
www.actionfraud.police.uk

@SunshineCake to be fair there are sometimes fees due at time of delivery - I've had plenty of things shipped from overseas where I've had to go and pay customs/extra shipping/admin fee at the sorting office before I could have it.

If you get a message like this, always look at the link they're asking you to use or if it's an email then look at the address it has come from. For example anything from royal mail will end in royalmail.com if it's genuine. Also look at what's been written. 'confirm the settlement' doesn't read well and sounds like something a foreigner would say. A big multinational company or government agency wouldn't word it like this.

Some scams look very convincing but a bit of searching or a call to the company using their official number (not the one in the message!) can save you a lot of trouble in the long run.

bit.ly sites are premium sites where you can make money for piracy. Avoid anything bit.ly! Not always a scam but often trojans, viruses or just pure rubbish.

This is not true. bit.ly is just a link shortener. Many sites use them due to character counts in tweets etc, or because you can see how much traffic the link is getting, and from where. Yes, sometimes it is used so it "hide" the site you are visiting, but most of them are just shortening a link! There are various other link shorteners too, google has one, owly is hootsuite (a software) for example, so to say all of them are scams is ridiculous!
Oh, and bit.ly is free, not premium!

Yes, this is a scam. But as an aside, if you’re filling in an online form which insists on a phone number but don’t want to give yours, use 0333 8888888. Anyone calling this number will hear a recorded message telling them that you don’t wish to receive unsolicited phone calls and inviting them to contact you by email.

Do you think that they have got your number from somewhere? Unless they're addressing you by name I would assume that they are just sending text to lots of numbers because many people will be expecting parcels at this time of year.

Yes @BlackAmericanoNoSugar that’s exactly what I think too. Lots of ordering and presents being sent, very likely they’ll get a match whichever number they spam.

Royal mail issue two alert cards.

RED ones to let you know where your items are - left with neighbour/ in safe place/ at local depot etc

GREY ones to inform Customers of charges Surcharges (no stamp or underpaid postage) or
Customs charges set by HWDC.

That is all.

And you can arrange a redelivery on their website. If the right postage has been paid there's no charge.

www.royalmail.com/personal/receiving-mail/redelivery

Blatant scam.

They will probably have got your phone number from a data breach. More and more companies get our personal details and the data breaches are getting bigger and bigger. Just last month an insecure database was discovered, open to all to read, with people's names, employers, job titles, phone numbers, and more - for over a billion people.

SunshineCake if theyre under paid then yes they do. You would need to collect them from the local delivery office and pay the difference and a surcharge

By card, Gemma