Is the text asking me to pay a delivery fee a scam?

This is the highest-volume scam text in the UK and it works because it arrives in the same week as something you genuinely ordered. The tell is not the wording, which is now excellent, and not the sender name, which is trivially set to anything. It is the structure: an unexpected message, a link, and a payment.

Safety

Step by step

1. Do not tap the link, even to look.The page is a copy of the courier's site and it will be convincing. There is no version of tapping it that helps you, because everything it can tell you is available in the courier's own app.
2. Check the tracking number the long way round.Open the courier's app, or type the courier's web address into the browser yourself, and paste the tracking number from your order confirmation email. If there is a genuine fee to pay, it will be shown there.
3. Check whether you are actually expecting anything.Real customs charges arrive on items sent from outside the UK, and they normally come as a card through the door or in the courier's own app, not as a text with a link.
4. Look at what the message wants.Any message that leads to a form asking for a full card number, expiry and security code together with your address and date of birth is collecting an identity, not a fee.
5. Forward it to 7726 and delete it.7726 spells SPAM on a keypad and is free on every UK network. Forward the message, and reply with the sender's number when the automated reply asks for it. Then delete the message and block the sender.
6. If you already entered card details, act now.Freeze the card in your banking app, then ring your bank on the number on the back of the card, or 159, and tell them it was a scam page. Do not wait to see whether anything is taken.
7. Expect the follow-up call and refuse it.Within hours or days, someone will ring claiming to be the bank's fraud team, referring to the payment you just made. That call is the same criminal. Your bank will never ask you to move money or read out a passcode.

Tips

• The sender name on a text can be set to anything, including the courier's real name, and it will thread into the same conversation as genuine messages from that company. A message sitting under real ones proves nothing.
• Some versions ask you to "reschedule" rather than pay, and the payment appears a screen later. The structure is the same.
• If you get one of these on a day you genuinely have a parcel due, that is coincidence at scale, not evidence that it is real. Millions of these go out at once.

Common mistakes

• Judging the message by spelling and layout — The old advice about bad English no longer works. These are copied from the real notification and generated at scale, and many are better written than the genuine ones.
• Tapping the link to see whether it looks real — It will look real, because it is a copy. Judging a fake site by whether it looks like the real site is the exact test the criminal has already passed.
• Assuming a small amount means small consequences — The fee is the smallest part of the loss. The card details and personal information you enter with it are the product, and they are used or sold.

Questions people ask