VERRET

Learn to spot it

The same handful of tricks, over and over. Once you have seen how one works you tend to recognise the next one without help — which is the point.

Fake delivery fees are back

A text about a parcel, a small fee, and a link that is not the courier.

What they are after

Card details, entered on a page that looks like the courier’s own.

Check it yourself, like this

01

Find the bit just before the first single slash

That, and only that, is who you are talking to. In royalmail.delivery-fee.co/track the host is delivery-fee.co — "royalmail" is a label they chose to put there.

02

Ask whether you are expecting a parcel at all

You know this and we never will. Half of these texts go to people with nothing on order, which settles it instantly.

03

Go the long way round instead

If you are expecting something, open the courier’s own app or type their address yourself. It costs a minute and removes the question entirely.

Being written

These are next. They are listed rather than half-written: a scam explainer with a step missing is worse than no explainer, because someone might act on it.

Someone from the bank ringing about a code

A call, an urgent problem, and a code they want read back to them.

A QR code stuck over the real one

A car park, a menu, a parking meter — and a sticker on top.