I’ve gotten this text last week and this week.
The grammar looks off. I highlighted the odd phrasing. I haven’t clicked.
Scam or not?
Scam. For one thing, that is not a USPS e-address.
us.ps is a giveaway that this is a scam.
Does the post office have your phone number?
I got the same … but I also got a “missed delivery” notice from the USPS around the same time.
If it is a scam, that’s some hella good timing on their part, in my case.
ETA: good point about USPS not having my cell phone number.
coincidence.
Same here. I was expecting a Amazon package yesterday. That text arrived at a bad time. But I didn’t click the link.
The secure https link made me wonder if it was legit.
Unless you believe it reasonable that the USPS would have your phone number and not your street address, then it’s a scam. No shipper is going to send you a text saying they need address verification.
I lot of shippers ask for a contact phone number. They only call if there is a delivery problem.
I think Amazon knows my contact number.
I know odd grammar can be a tip off. The Nigerian scammers have problems with English.
But unlike UPS or FedEx, USPS doesn’t request a recipient phone number when creating labels.
The shipper asks - and they may pass that number on to the delivery service. But I’ve had the delivery service call for instructions or to tell me they are 10 minutes away - and what they do is call, not text.
I’ve only had a shipper call me a couple times. I had a washer/dryer delivery and they called before coming.
I see your point they don’t text…
I’m surprised the text got through. In my spam text folder that is maintained by the carrier, it’s basically this kind of thing over and over, with various websites and shippers.
The url domain is registered in China so gonna guess it’s not the real USPS
Incidentally, not your question, but I don’t see anything odd about this sentence, especially not the part that was highlighted. It seems like a perfectly good, if terse (appropriate for a text, in my experience), expression of the purported facts. All the other stuff mentioned is good cause to doubt the authenticity, but not this sentence.
First result in Google for USPS text scam:
HOW TO REPORT USPS Related SMISHING:
To report USPS related smishing, send an email to spam@uspis.gov.
Without clicking on the web link, copy the body of the suspicious text message and paste into a new email.
Provide your name in the email, and also attach a screenshot of the text message showing the phone number of the sender and the date sent.
Include any relevant details in your email, for example: if you clicked the link, if you lost money, if you provided any personal information, or if you experienced any impacts to your credit or person.
The Postal Inspection Service will contact you if more information is needed.
Forward the smishing/text message to 7726 (this will assist with reporting the scam phone number).
That’s very good information. I should have remembered to ask google.
I’ve been getting a ton of these scam USPS texts. They all come from from +44 numbers. I don’t think there’s a way set a rule to block/auto delete texts with that country code, so it’s just another daily annoyance I have to deal with.
That’s exactly what scammers are hoping for. The send the text to a bunch of random people, knowing most people will recognize it as a scam. But a few people will coincidentally be expecting a package, and some of them might blindly click the link thinking it had to do with the package they were expecting.
Something sort of similar happened to me a few months ago while I was traveling. I used my debit card to buy something at the airport, boarded my flight, and when I got off the plane and turned airplane mode off on my phone I had a voicemail. The first part was cut off, but it ended with “…if you did not make this purchase, press 1.” In retrospect, I’m sure it was a scam, but at the time my first thought was “Oh no, my bank flagged that last purchase as possibly fraudulent and locked my account,” which is something that’s happened before while traveling. But then I realized it might be a scam, and called the number on the back of my debit card rather then the number I got the voicemail from. And they confirmed they hadn’t called me and my account wasn’t locked.
A few years back, I was walking behind someone and happened to glance at his computer screen with a similar email on it. I was about to say something but then thought ‘nah, he won’t click on it and I don’t want to be condescending’.
Took me about 3 days to diagnose the problem, recover as much data as possible, format the hard drive and get the whole thing back up and running again.