Subject: Scam alert
This was sent to me by a gal who works for the RCMP in Regina just to give a heads up about a new scam that has happened.
This is very clever. `I would probably fall for it if not warned. Give this wide distribution. This scam is actually very clever. Just when you thought you'd heard it all. Beware of people bearing gifts.
The following is a recounting of the incident from the victim:

Wednesday a week ago, I had a phone call from someone saying that he was from some outfit called: "Express Couriers," (The name could be any courier company). He asked if I was going to be home because there was a package for me that required a signature.

The caller said that the delivery would arrive at my home in roughly an hour. Sure enough, about an hour later, a uniformed delivery man turned up with a beautiful basket of flowers and a bottle of wine. I was very surprised since there was no special occasion or holiday, and I certainly didn't expect anything like it. Intrigued, I inquired as to who the sender was.The courier replied, "I don't know, I'm only delivering the package."
Apparently, a greeting card was being sent separately (the card has never arrived!). There was also a consignment note with the gift. He then went on to explain that because the gift contained alcohol, there was a $3.50 "delivery/ verification charge," providing proof that he had actually delivered the package to an adult (of legal drinking age), and not just left it on the doorstep where it could be stolen or taken by anyone, especially a minor.

This sounded logical and I offered to pay him cash. He then said that the delivery company required payment to be by credit or debit card only, so that everything is properly accounted for, and this would help in keeping a legal record of the transaction.

He added, "Couriers don't carry cash to avoid loss or likely targets for robbery." My husband, who by this time was standing beside me, pulled out his credit card, and 'John,' the "delivery man," asked him to swipe the card on a small mobile card machine with a small screen and keypad. Frank, my husband, was asked to enter his PIN number and a receipt was printed out. He was given a copy of the transaction. The guy said everything was in order, and wished us good day.

To our horrible surprise, between Thursday and the following Monday, $4,000 had been charged/withdrawn from our credit/debit account at various ATM machines.
Apparently the "mobile credit card machine," which the deliveryman carried now had all the info necessary to create a "dummy" card with all our card details including the PIN number.
Upon finding out about the illegal transactions on our card, we immediately notified the bank which issued us a new card, and our credit/debit account was closed.
We also personally went to the Police, where it was confirmed that it is definitely a scam because several households had been similarly hit.
WARNING: Be wary of accepting any "surprise gift or package," which you neither expected nor personally ordered, especially if it involves any kind of payment as a condition of receiving the gift or package. Also, never accept anything If you do not personally know or there is no proper identification of who the sender is.

Above all, the only time you should give out any personal credit/debit card information is when you yourself initiated the purchase or transaction!
PLEASE pass this on; it may just prevent someone else from being swindled.

Yup pretty clever I must say, thanks for sharing

Marc..

Ugh, just remember not one courier is required to get money from a reciepitant with a delivery. That's dealt with the shipper and they deal with the license issues of shipping ATF material.

very clever and yes very good point DaBBQ. Thanks for posting KraziK !

You want to charge ME using MY card info for something I didn't order?

A fool and his money...

wow, yes, a very clever and devious scam!

Clever.

Because there are so many scams or irritating salespeople that can come to your door, I solve this issue by answering my door with my FNP-45 pistol in a belt holster.
That stops a LOT of crap right there.

But good to know about this.

Yeah really! Although if one was doing this scam at houses already verified to have a housewife at home with a husband at work on VALENTINES DAY I could totally imagine an assumption said husband was the sender...

That scam could work here, it is quite routine to have parcels delivered and you pay the delivery man, and you will find the option to pay on delivery from shops in Belgium. We do have an online form to make a bank transfer from yourself to the company you are purchasing from, credit/debit card transactions over the internet are not that common and can be quite complicated.

With your mobile phone and the bank app you can take a picture of the online form and the details will be filled in and then through your banking app you transfer the money to the recipient, heard my son curse more than once trying to get a good picture of the form, you can also take a picture of an actual paper form and it will fill it in the same way.

Most transactions here are done via bank debit card, cash transactions are limited to less than €1000 and are becoming the lesser used way to pay in a shop.

So in Belgium it would be considered normal to get a surprise delivery for which the recipient made no purchase whatsoever, had no prior knowledge of, and for which the recipient- who has nothing g to do with the supposed order except to be the receiver- is expected to pay a "delivery" or "processing" fee, via credit card only, on delivery?

That's a classic set up for adding urgency, expectation of something for nothing, and confusion in which a con man can get otherwise smart people to do dumb things. It's hard for me to believe that's the norm in Belgium.

Yep, has happened, my son has ordered things and forgot to mention it, but I call him before I pay for it to make sure all is ok, I will not pay for something that is a "surprise"

It is changing here, normal bank debit cards are not able to be used on the internet, you have to use a credit card and you have to specifically ask for it to be able to be used online. The postman here carries a card reader to enable him to take payments at the doorstep, I'm not sure if they still take cash but they did before. I have had to pay the postman for import duties on goods delivered from the USA or if I'm not in he leaves a card and I have to go to the post office and pay to pick up the package, last was a few months ago and was a book I bought through kickstarter

In the scenario you cite, was that a fee for the item plus delivery, or just delivery?

For the goods my son ordered I can't remember, it has been a while, he has his own credit card now, he needed one to hire a car while we were all on holiday in Spain a few years ago, also he needed it to get bits for an old BMW he is restoring.

For myself and the book with DVD, that was recent, the kickstarter cost me $80 including shipping, and the import duty plus the post office handling fees were €37, quite a shocker that one, there were a few of us in Europe that backed the kickstarter for the audio guide and then got hit by high import duties/handling fees, it was a topic of discussion on the author's website.


http://musicandaudioguide.com/