New Parcel Delivery Scam Alert: Beware Of The Latest Online Fraud

The digital revolution in India has brought significant progress and convenience to our lives but at a cost. Technological advancement has also given rise to new online scams due to the increased connectivity and access to digital platforms.

Well, now there is a new scam in the market! A viral video has now thrown light at fraudulent practice where a caller requests you to dial *401* followed by a specified phone number, under the pretext of assisting with parcel delivery. If followed, your calls and messages, including OTPs, will apparently be redirected to the scammer's number.

In a viral clip, a woman is seen speaking to a person about getting the delivery of a parcel and tells her to follow the aforementioned steps to get the product.

"Scammer will call you, will tell you that delivery boy is trying to deliver your order but not able to locate your house. The person then gives the delivery boy's number and and asks you to add *401* before adding the delivery boy's number to connect with him. He tells you that it is the company's extension code and you should follow the process to connect with the delivery boy failing which the parcel will return," the woman says.

"But I cut the call and then Googled it to discover that the said number is a call-forwarding code. This enables all your calls, messages and OTPs to the phone number given by the caller. So, beware of this scam," she warns.

Responding to the clip, another user said, "It happened to me also , they said my parcel is blocked and you have to pay 5 rs as activation code to delivery agent."

Second user said, "I hv been receiving calls from mobile no. with IVRS saying that my fedex parcel didn't deliver due to address not found, press 1 to continue but I cut the call and contacted fedex customer support and asked about any package, they said there is no parcel with my name."

Another user added, "Two days back, my friend went through this incident. He tried to call on that fake no. He got txt msg having link to update few info. Once he clicked on tht without submitting links all financial info getting started sharing on that fake num.We format cellphne n reported in cyber."