The held-parcel scam

This is the most widespread SMS fraud, and its power rests on a statistical certainty: at any given moment, a huge share of recipients really are waiting for a parcel. The message therefore doesn't need to be plausible, it just needs to arrive at exactly the right time. It mentions a held parcel, demands a few euros in fees, and points to a copy of a well-known carrier's site.

How this scam works

The text talks about a pending parcel, unpaid customs duties or an incomplete address, and slips in a link to "sort things out". The target page borrows a carrier's branding and asks for a small sum — one or two euros — by bank card. The amount is only a pretext: it serves solely to validate a working card number, later reused for far heavier charges, sometimes weeks afterwards.

How to spot it

• You aren't expecting any parcel, or you ordered nothing from a merchant that imposes customs clearance.
• The carrier named differs from the one announced by the shop where you placed your order.
• The tracking number is missing, or leads to nothing on the carrier's official site.
• The fees demanded are tiny: real customs clearance is never paid one euro through an SMS link.

What to do after receiving this message

1. 1

   Leave the link closed

   Merely displaying the page can prove your line is active, which will earn you further waves of messages.

2. 2

   Confirm straight with the carrier

   Go to the carrier's official site by typing the address yourself, and look up your tracking number. If it doesn't exist, the SMS is fraudulent.

3. 3

   Send the message on to 33700

   Reporting is free. An automatic follow-up will ask you for the sender's number: send it back exactly as is.

4. 4

   Delete the message and block the line

   Blocking protects you at once, independently of the report, which acts on the source instead.

Your frequently asked questions

SMS Anonyme has no connection with the organisations mentioned on these pages, cited only because crooks hijack their names. Our service is moreover confined to personal, one-off sends, from a masked number: it broadcasts no campaign or commercial message, and could not be the source of a fraudulent SMS received under our name or that of a third party.