Warning - Attempted Fraud

A warning to be on your guard if you receive a courier delivery that whilst addressed to you isn’t something you’re expecting!

A few days ago a courier arrived with a delivery for me. At the time I was slightly surprised as I didn’t have any online orders outstanding and therefore wasn’t expecting any deliveries. But given the time of year and the parcel had my correct name and address I thought it must be a Christmas gift from someone. However on opening the parcel I found 2 unwrapped boxes and an advice note from a home shopping company that I have ordered from in the past showing an order for two identical electrical items at a cost of several hundred pounds! Alarm bells rang as I recalled reading about something similar happening to someone else locally where soon after the parcel was delivered another person turned up to collect it saying it had been delivered in error. I thought it had been on this forum but have been unable to find the posting. When I checked my online account with the company there was no mention of the order and I noticed that my customer number didn’t match the one shown on the advice note. So I called the company and advised them what had happened and almost immediately they told me they could see what had happened and I’d been the victim of a fraud.as a new credit account had been set up by someone using my name and address who had then taken advantage of the credit available on the new account to order these items. I’ve therefore had to email both their Investigations and credit control departments to confirm that I did not set up this second account or place an order for the items that were sent to me and request all credit on this account be removed. Whoever set up this account obviously used an email address they’d set up so that when the order was dispatched they were advised and sent the courier tracking details which enabled them to know as soon as the parcel had been delivered to me. The company have arranged for the parcel to be collected and returned to them but I wasn’t surprised when within an hour of the parcel being delivered my door bell rang. I looked out the window and couldn’t see any cars or vans that I didn’t recognise so decided to not answer the door straight away. However when the ringing become more persistent and at times quite frantic I was fairly confident this was someone I didn’t want to engage with and continued not to answer the door! They returned several times during the afternoon of the original delivery (definitely not usual courier behaviour!) and over the next couple of days but have not been back in the last 24 hours. Hopefully they realise they’ve been sussed and have given up.

I tried reporting the issue to the police but they advised it was an issue for Action Fraud but after filling an online report with they’ve advised they will not investigate as it is the company that would have been defrauded not me, and therefore the company needs to log the issue.

Not sure if a similar attempt but I’m on como Road and got an attempted fraud with someone using my name and address with AO.com
Their credit department contacted me to say they detected fraud through wrong date of birth given but correct name and address.

Wow ! Really quite an effective scam when you think about it - I don’t know whether I would have paid much notice if this happened to me , so thanks for the heads up ! It’s good to share these things and I’ll be sure to mention to friends and family also.
Glad they didn’t get the freebie and hope you get the credit removed from your name easily.
Merry xmas

Sounds like it might have been trying the same scam possibly even the same people doing it. The retailer mine went through was JD Williams who are one of the brands in the N Brown group and they do clothing, homeware and electricals. Obviously it’s high value electrical items that are likely to reap them the most reward if they can get hold of the parcel! However I’m surprised that as there was already an account in my name and address which I’ve had for several years that the JD Williams system didn’t pick up that another account was being requested especially since whenever I buy from them I usually pay in full by card.

Thanks. Merry Xmas to you too!

Shocking.

Hi @ChrisR you might want to consider registering with https://www.cifas.org.uk/services/identity-protection/protective-registration . I believe it flags your details and provides some extra protection if scammers try to open an account etc in your name.

Thanks @oakr. I’ll look into that. It’s certainly concerning how easy it seems to be for our personal details to get into the wrong hands!

This sort of thing is very scary.
I had a similar thing when I very stupidly filled a form in that came through in a text message pretending to be
from 02. They even followed up with a phone call. It was only when I was suspicious & rang 02 myself that an order for an I phone 12 was cancelled.
It was very unnerving. I have since changed passwords & received a new bank card.
Another scam I saw on the TV the other day was when a supposedly courier turns up with a parcel saying that there is extra delivery charges to pay, but you can only pay by card. Your card is then cloned in the back of a van…
To say we have to be on our guard is undisputed!

So true.

Also What’s app scam. Wanting you to send an SMS code that was accidentally sent to your phone. Which enables them access to all what’s app info.