Believe it or not, some people are still waiting for holiday packages ordered well before Christmas.  The Coronavirus pandemic resulted in an tremendous amount of online gift orders and while Federal Express, UPS and the United States Postal Service did a very good job in delivering packages in a timely fashion, a significant number of items that should have been delivered weeks ago, have still not been delivered.  As always, when something affects many people, scammers take advantage of it to scam us.  In this case, the scammers, posing as the United States Postal Service, Federal Express and UPS and Amazon are contacting people indicating that they apologize for the delay in receiving their orders and offering a refund of their money.  The emails contain a link for you to click on to process your claim for a refund, but unfortunately, if you click on the link either you will automatically download harmful malware or you will be prompted to provide information that will be used to make you a vicitm of identity theft.

TIPS

As always, the first thing you should look at when you get such an email is the address from which it was sent.  In many instances the email address of the sender has no relation to the United States Postal Service, Federal Express, UPS or Amazon.  Often the email is that of someone whose email account has been hijacked by the scammer and made a part of a botnet of zombie computers used to send out such phishing emails.  However, in other instances, the email address may appear legitimate.  But remember my motto, “trust me, you can’t trust anyone.”  Even if the email address of the sender looks legitimate, you should never click on a link unless you have absolutely confirmed that the email is legitmate.  In this case, none of these companies are contacting you by email or text messages offering refunds.  UPS offers refunds only to customers who requst them by calling 800-742-5877 or through their Billing Center.  Federal Express does not offer refunds for late deliveries.  Amazon is offering customers a $20 account credit in additon to its late delivery refund to those customers requesting them.  The best way to do so is online through your Amazon account.

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 has been cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.

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