Fraud alert: prepaid courier scam

Lorddrakul

Well, one lives and learns.

I got an unsolicited WhatsApp message today about a watch ad on Done Deal.

Guy asked a few questions but didn't seem interested in the detail. He calls himself Patrick, says he is in Muff, but it's clear English is not his first language. Fair enough.

He says he wants to buy at full price and do a prepaid courier with money handled by courier service. All I need to do is log on to An Post and give them my details to receive payment and arrange for a courier to call at my convenience.

I wasn't aware that An Post had such a service and was mightily impressed. Boo-sucks to you Chrono24!

So he sends me the URL as he has already made payment and set it all up.

https:// anpost.com.transaction3dsecure.eu/ tracks/24608

(spaces added to avoid activation)

Hang on, says I, that looks off. So I did a look up on the TLD and found it registered to a company in Cyprus with Russian DNS servers.

Also, I can't find any indication of the service on AnPost.com

So I messaged him back and says no dice, that looks dodgy. He immediately responds with a tirade of fairly pathetic insults and lopes off. Now the link returns a 404!

The mobile number is 0899878756.

Watch out all, it all looked and sounded credible.

Fitz II

Jesus these scams get more and more elaborate

fat bloke

What alerted you to it being "off"?

Lorddrakul

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118154552#Comment_118154552

The domain.

That domain format just isn't what is used by legitimate sources.

Always look at what is in front of the dot. Any top level domain, such as this one, .eu will have it's own WHOIS service to check who owns it. Secondly, what is immediately to the left of that is the root domain, and that is the actual site, not whatever is appended further left with more dots.

To be honest, I was nearly there! It just looked right and I was thinking fair play to An Post for a great new service!

Be careful out there!

Cienciano

Nicely spotted. Any "weird" way of paying sets off alarm bells. Foreign people that seem to have little interest in the product is another.

banie01

Nice spot, always pays to be aware of the smart moves of scammers and the services they will con you with.

unkel

I get these all the time. Always reply with a polite "sorry but it is collect only from me" answer, stating that there are "too many scammers around"

Always shuts them up

micks_address

not a watch deal but had something like this during the summer from an post. Was waiting for a delivery from the Uk and got a text from an post saying i missed delivery and to click a link to rearrange.. was away for a week on holidays in cork and it asked for a 3 euro re delivery charge for a new scheduled time.. i paid with my revolut and sure enough tons of charges attempted right away... didnt loose anything but was annoying.. i'd normally have spotted in straight away but was just the coincidence that i was away.. and was due something that combined to make it seem more legit.. it also came from the same number an post text on

MarcusP12

I had the exact same thing when selling a golf club….I knew it was off immediately as he almost instantly said he was happy to pay asking price which NEVER happens but I went along with it for a bit just to see how it would play out….I made it clear I had doubts but he tried to convince me his sister worked at an post and it was a service only available to staff…he sent me a link but I didn’t click on it and told him to do one and blocked him….you can’t be careful enough out there…

Lorddrakul

@OmegaGene Looks legit. Let us know how you get on.

:)