Parcel Delivery SCAM

Englandsno.7

I meant to post this some time ago.... Now with parcels being delivered regularly in the run up to Christmas I want to share this with you.

The Trading Standards Office have brought the following scam to a partner agency's attention:

A card is posted through your door from a company called PDS (Parcel Delivery Service) suggesting that they were unable to deliver a parcel and that you need to contact them on 0906 6611911 (a premium rate number). DO NOT call this number as this is a mail scam originating from Belize.

If you call this number and start to hear a recorded message you will already have been billed £15 for the phone call.

If you do receive a card with these details, then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 0207 239 6655 or ICSTIS (the premium rate service regulator) at http://www.icstis.org.uk or your local trading standards office.

THIS IS A GENUINE SCAM

This service is under investigation by ICSTIS. Please be aware of this scam and forward this information to as many as possible.

Browntoa

hoax , read

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/pds-phone-scam.html

Commentary:
This email warning was widely circulated for several months at the beginning of 2006. However, recent submissions indicate that the warning is once again rapidly gaining momentum. The information in the message was mostly factual. However, the particular scam described in the message was shut down almost a year ago and the information is no longer relevant. ICSTIS, the UK's premium rate services regulator, has issued the following statement:

Parcel Delivery Service – Chain Email

It has come to our attention that a chain e-mail has been circulating the internet. It makes reference to the Royal Mail, the City of London Police and Parcel Delivery Services. ICSTIS appreciates that consumers want to find out more information about this alert and have issued the following statement:

During the Christmas period 2005, a number of people across the UK received cards from Parcel Delivery Services (a service run through a service provider called Studio Telecom). When ICSTIS were informed of the content and promotion of this service we invoked our Emergency Procedure - for details click this link - https://www.icstis.org.uk/service_providers/complaints/default.asp) and removed access to the service (operating on 20 numbers) on 29 December 2005.

We do not believe that this service is operating again and have issued a statement to the industry to reiterate that they fulfill their responsibilities under our Code of Practice and ensure that any premium rate service running on their network abides by our regulation. Read complete statement (.pdf)

There is also no current warnings about this particular scam on either the Trading Standards website or the Royal Mail website.

In fact, as noted above, the phone numbers used in the scam were switched off by ICSTIS in December 2005 and Studio Telecom, the company responsible, was investigated. Studio Telecom was previously fined for a similar premium rate phone scheme.

When the scam was operating around December 2005, many UK householders reported receiving a card, ostensibly from a package delivery business named "Parcel Delivery Services" or "PDS". The card advised recipients to phone a number provided in order to arrange delivery of a package, claimed to be a digital camera.

However the contact number was a premium rate line that was charged at £1.50 per minute. A disclaimer in very small print on the bottom of the card informed recipients that the contact number would be charged at a premium rate. Although the cards claimed to originate from Wrexham in the UK, the company responsible for this scam is actually based in Belize, Central America.