I’ve had three parcels on the go this week. A return going back to Sezanne, something for the kids arriving from three different places because apparently one order is never enough, and a birthday present I still haven’t wrapped. So when a text landed on Monday saying my delivery had failed and I needed to pay £1.99 to rearrange it, I very nearly just tapped the link and paid it. It was only because the courier name didn’t quite match anything I was expecting that I stopped.
That’s the trick. These texts aren’t clever because the fake websites are convincing, although some of them are. They’re clever because they arrive on a day when you are expecting a parcel, at a moment when you’re doing six things at once and your brain is happy to fill in the gaps. You don’t read it properly. You just react.
So this one’s for anyone else who’s had that same half-second of nearly paying it. Here’s what these texts actually look like, why they work, and what to do instead of tapping the link.
Why these texts catch you off guard
Delivery scam texts work because they don’t ask for much. Not your bank login, not your full card number up front, just a small fee. A pound. Two pounds. Sometimes it’s framed as a customs charge instead of a redelivery fee. The amount is deliberately tiny, because a small ask doesn’t trigger the same caution a big one would. Nobody stops to think twice about £1.99.
They also lean hard on timing. Scam texts about “failed delivery” tend to spike around the exact weeks most of us are actually shopping online, so the odds that you’re actually expecting something are high. And because most delivery companies do text you legitimately, your instinct is already trained to trust the format: short message, courier name, a link, click to sort it out.
The link is where it falls apart, if you slow down enough to look. It’s rarely the courier’s actual website. It’ll be a string of letters that almost looks right, or a shortened link that hides where it’s really going, and it leads to a page built to look exactly like a tracking or payment page while quietly collecting your card details.
What a delivery scam text actually looks like
A few signs come up again and again, whichever courier they’re pretending to be:
- A message saying your address is incomplete or your delivery has failed, when you weren’t told about any issue before
- A small fee requested for redelivery or customs, usually under £5
- A link that doesn’t go to the courier’s actual website when you look closely at it
- Pressure to act today, or the parcel gets returned
- A tracking number that doesn’t match anything real if you check it directly on the courier’s own site
None of these on their own is proof. Genuine delivery problems do happen. But a fee attached to a link you’re being pushed to click quickly is the combination worth being suspicious of every single time.
The one doing the rounds right now
There’s a specific version of this worth knowing, because it’s had a lot of attention recently: a FedEx scam sent by text or email, claiming a failed delivery or an unpaid fee, with a link that leads to a fake tracking or payment page. The format is identical to what I nearly fell for, just with a different courier’s name stamped on it. If you’ve had one claiming to be from FedEx, or Evri, or DPD, or Royal Mail, the pattern underneath is the same, and the advice underneath is the same too.
The genuinely useful habit here is to stop opening the link at all. If you think there’s a real chance you’ve got a parcel with an issue, close the text and go straight to the courier’s own app or website, and check your tracking number there instead. It takes an extra thirty seconds and it means you’re never one careless tap away from handing your card details to someone in another country.
What a courier will never ask you to do
It helps to know the boundaries a legitimate delivery company sticks to, because scammers routinely cross every single one of them.
A real courier will send tracking updates and will occasionally ask you to confirm an address or pay a genuinely outstanding customs charge, always through their own website or app. What they won’t do is ask for your full card number by text, ask you to pay by gift card or cryptocurrency, or contact you from a personal mobile number rather than their official short code. If any of those show up, you’re not dealing with the courier.
If you’ve already clicked or paid
This happens to sensible people constantly, so there’s no need to feel silly about it if it’s already happened to you. Close the page straight away and don’t click anything else on it. If you entered any card details, ring your bank immediately and ask them to freeze the card and watch for unusual charges, most banks can do this from the app in a couple of minutes now. If you entered a password anywhere on that page, change it, and change it anywhere else you’ve used the same one.
Worth keeping an eye on your accounts for a little while afterwards too, since these details sometimes get reused in a second attempt rather than straight away.
Where to actually report it
Reporting it properly takes about two minutes and genuinely helps get these numbers and sites taken down faster. In the UK, forward the text to 7726, which reports it to your mobile network as spam, and if you’ve lost money you can report it to Action Fraud. In the US, the equivalent is reporting to the FTC. Either way, your bank is the first call if any payment was involved, not the last.
A couple of quick questions
Rarely, and almost never as the first you’ll hear of it. Most customs or redelivery charges are handled through the courier’s own app or website once you’ve tracked the parcel there yourself, not through a text asking you to click and pay immediately.
Go directly to the courier’s official website, not through any link in the text, and enter the number there. If it doesn’t come up, or comes up attached to a different address entirely, that’s your answer.
Yes. The design being convincing tells you nothing. What matters is whether the link goes to the courier’s actual domain, and whether you’re being asked to pay something small, quickly, before you’ve had time to think about it.
If you want more on keeping your money and your accounts sorted without the jargon, it’s worth a browse through the wider Money section too.
Either way, the fix is the same one every time: close the text, open the courier’s own app, and check it there instead. It’s the thirty seconds that would have saved me £1.99 on Tuesday.
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Most Sundays, once the house has gone quiet and it's edging towards nine, a letter goes out. It's the one I'd write to a friend with good taste and not nearly enough time: one thing worth reading, one thing worth buying, and one thing to skip. No noise, no pressure to spend, just the considered version of what I've actually been using, loving, or quietly sending back.
