Urgent warning over new scam where DPD parcels are delivered to wrong address
A TikToker has warned Brits about a new scam that sees fraudsters impersonating DPD drivers and attempting to intercept parcels delivered to your front door.
The frightening technique is thought to use someone else's bank details to get a package delivered to the wrong address, at which point the scammers try to ask for it back while wearing a T-shirt with the courier's logo. As the occupant never placed the order themselves, they are more likely to give back the order under the assumption that it was meant for someone else.
A woman took to TikTok to raise awareness of the scam, prompting dozens of people to say they had experienced a similar thing.
Posting on the video platform, @shonelise told how she was chatting on the phone with her best friend, who went to receive a parcel from Sky addressed to her dad. But minutes after taking it inside, a person dressed as a DPD driver appeared at the door saying it had been delivered by mistake.
The TikTok user said: "My best friend told them 'no it has my address and dad's name,, it's clearly meant for this address. If there's anything wrong with it we will contact Sky directly.' He went away in a huff, and my friend and her mum thought it was weird.
'Most impersonated woman' used by scammers to steal from thousands of men
"They opened the parcel, as you would, because they wanted to see what the fuss was about. In the parcel was an iPhone 14 with a sim card. Her dad hadn't ordered a phone so obviously someone had taken out a contract, paid upfront and had it delivered to their address.
"So her dad comes home, rings Sky to say a phone been delivered and that he didn't order it. He asked them 'can you look into it, someone's obviously fraudulently used my details'. They looked into it and found the account the phone was ordered off of - there were actually two phones ordered.
@shonelise told how she was chatting on the phone with her best friend, who went to receive a parcel from Sky (@shonelise/TikTok)
She said: "Moral of the story is be wary of your details" (@shonelise/TikTok)"One had been delivered the Friday previous, and nobody was home at that time. it said on their system that someone had intercepted the delivery at their front door. So someone was obviously waiting at their front door to collect this parcel.
"Because they got lucky that time they obviously thought 'well let me do it again might be able to get another one out of this'. But this time they obviously weren't tracking the delivery properly and were too late. But my guy had a plan B obviously and had a DPD shirt on, to try and pretend to be them and take the parcel back.
"It's quite clever to be fair but it's also quite annoying." She added: "Moral of the story is be wary of your details and of fake DPD drivers taking deliveries off your doorsteps, because these scammers are getting techy as hell."
Others took to the comments section telling of similar experiences, with one person writing: "Ah this happened to my mum but the items where from Harrods and it was a Gucci shirt. Next door neighbour knocked on the door saying delivery was his."
Another said: "Omg this happened to my dad!! 2 phones and 2 Apple Watches. Except the person who did it made sure they were outside our house for the delivery!" A third added: "Omg this happened to me with eBay a few years ago!! They tried to buy 2 of them electronic hoovers at like £200 each but used my card and address." And a fourth said: "This happened to my dad years ago with an iPhone 5C!!"
A spokesperson for DPD told the Mirror: "This is a version of a known identity fraud scam that involves criminals getting hold of an individual’s personal information and using it to buy high value items. From a DPD point of view, this presents as a normal delivery and our driver is simply doing their job and delivering the package to the correct address, unaware of the scam.
"The criminals track the delivery and then attempt to recover the phone from the recipient, by posing as DPD staff. We would like to reassure readers that it is an incredibly rare fraud scam, but if you are impacted by it, steps you can take include reporting it to Action Fraud and contacting your bank or credit card provider and the phone provider."
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