During the social distancing and quarantining that has become the hallmark of the Coronavirus pandemic, deliveries by UPS, Federal Express, Amazon and others have become the primary way many of us are doing all or almost all of our shopping. Scammers are always taking advantage of whatever is popular with people and there is no shortage of scams related to deliveries following online purchases. I have written about many of these, but there are always new ones popping up.
Recently many people are reporting receivng text messages that appear to come from UPS or Federal Express indicating that it is necessary for you to update your delivery preferences. In order to do so you are asked to click on a link and provide personal information. Unfortunately, if you click on the link one of two things will happen. Either you will be taken to a page where you provide your personal information to a criminal who will use the information to make you a victim of identity theft or you will download dangerous malware, such as ransomware, merely by clicking on the link.
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide was recently cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is to go to the bottom of the initial page of http://www.scamicide.com and click on the tab that states “Sign up for this blog.”