I get an An Post scam text every time I order from Amazon

J

JoeRoberts

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I notice every time I order something from Amazon I get one of the bogus An Post text messages asking to pay import fees. So suggests someone on the inside of Amazon or the courier company is colluding with the scammers.
 
There are other digital traces of an online purchase

Credit card provider
Email provider

I’d be more concerned someone has hacked my yahoo account I haven’t changed the password on since 2005.
 
There could be trackers on your device that monitor web page access to the amazon order page. It's a lot easier these days to link your device to your phone number and email address, a lot of registrations seem to now look for both.
 
Block the numbers of the scam texters.

Unless you have end-to-end encryption set up between you and whoever you email or exchange SMSs with, the question isn't if your communications will be intercepted, but how many ne'er do-wells will grab it from the ether.
 
I'm not getting the text messages unless I have ordered something.

3 text messages this year.16/March, 5/April, 6/May.
Amazon "your item has dispatched" email rec'd 15/Mar, 5/April,4/May. 2 items were amazon.de and 1 amazon.co.uk

Text messages all from different numbers but giving slightly different websites to pay the fee. All qouting the same standard tracking number ( which is not the actual tracking number though)

Received a package from DeFacto Shave and espares.co.uk this week with no such scam text, but different courier than amazon use.
 
It sounds like something from The Departed, but in the UK scammers and criminals have placed employees in banks. We’d be naive to assume that they’re not doing the same in the Irish banks.
 
It’s all speculation but I would think the most likely source is either a compromised Amazon or email account.

It’s not impossible that providers are suffering large-scale, real-time theft of customer data either but I’d use Occam’s Razor here.
 
JoeRoberts said:
I'm not getting the text messages unless I have ordered something.

3 text messages this year.16/March, 5/April, 6/May.
Amazon "your item has dispatched" email rec'd 15/Mar, 5/April,4/May. 2 items were amazon.de and 1 amazon.co.uk
Click to expand...

Hi Joe

So you have received no other scam texts other than these three?

You have not ordered anything else from Amazon, other than these three?

Is there a facility to report this to Amazon? If I were Amazon, I would investigate this by putting through a few more dummy orders or dummy despatch messages to see if it holds true or if it was random.

Brendan
 
JoeRoberts said:
I'm not getting the text messages unless I have ordered something.

3 text messages this year.16/March, 5/April, 6/May.
Amazon "your item has dispatched" email rec'd 15/Mar, 5/April,4/May. 2 items were amazon.de and 1 amazon.co.uk

Text messages all from different numbers but giving slightly different websites to pay the fee. All qouting the same standard tracking number ( which is not the actual tracking number though)

Received a package from DeFacto Shave and espares.co.uk this week with no such scam text, but different courier than amazon use.
Click to expand...
On Amazon website, go down to the very bottom - there’s a “let us help you” section and “customer service”.
This link brings you to the support page where about in the middle you’ll find a “report something suspicious” button.

Be as specific as possible when reporting this. It will be investigated.
 
change the passwords on your amazon and email accounts if you haven't already.

my understanding of these SMS scams though is that they're entirely volume based - they send out 1000s of messages, some of them reach people who are expecting a delivery and some of the them are fooled.
 
I get these too but I order little from Amazon. Now, about 2 weeks ago, I ordered and received a book from Amazon. The other day I answered a mobile number to be told my Revolut card was about to be charged €79 for Prime. Connected? I don't think so but I've received these before, randomly. I rarely answer unknown numbers now and block those that are obvious scams.

I think it's a random number generator at work here, not hacked supplier's. We've been ordering a lot of Temu and no increase in scam texts or calls.
 
It's these types of coincidences that see people falling for scams. I've received the AnPost one 3 times this year, but the dates don't match any of the 22 orders I've placed with Amazon.

The Revolut being charged for Amazon Prime one is doing the rounds these last few months. Blocking the number does nothing to stop them they are spoofing numbers and keep rotating, the chances of the same or other scammers contacting you from that same number again are longer than your odds of winning the lottery!
 
Number of possibilities here
  • It's a coincidence
  • There is a leak from Amazon or the couriers
  • there is a leak within An Post but would they have your phone number?
  • There is a leak from within the Credit Card provider or Payment Gateway provider- unlikely as the package of data there will not include your phone number
  • Your own data/device has been compromised. Perhaps try ordering from a dummy email address and a different device and see what happens the next time
 
Just to add to that excellent list, could you give a friend's phone number the next time you order and see if they get the scam message.

Brendan
 
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Near impossible to be amazon or courier.

Amazon UK processes about 600m orders a year. Even a quiet day is 1 million.

It is so automated that for one person to have 3 orders on 3 different day picked out to pass details to a scam calling company is probably odds of about 50million to one. Even small online retailers (such as myself) is very automated and staff would not see a phone number unless they had specific permissions.

I would simply put it down as co-incidence. These spam farms send text out to bulk lots and your "turn" coincided to about the time of orders. The number it came from is simply a random generated number and can actually be someone's real phone number and they don't know it is being used
 
joeroberts not just amazon ,exact same thing happens to me whenever i order from addresspal and only when i get item from addresspal , i wrote about it in a thread here somewhere previously
 
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