Even a Wary Consumer Can Get Scammed

The young woman was reluctant to answer a call from an international phone number, but she picked up anyway. The man from “Fraud Prevention” claimed to represent a cellphone provider and said there had been an address mix-up or possible fraud involving an order for an iPhone and AirPods. She immediately questioned the caller’s legitimacy, given he was calling from another part of the world. He allayed her concerns by calling her back from a domestic number to prove he was legit. She was still wary, though, especially when he asked her to sign for a FedEx delivery in case the package wasn’t intercepted before arriving at her house. This is where things get even more suspicious.

The agent asked, if the package came to her mistakenly, could she simply accept it with a signature (not refuse it, mind you, so it would be returned to sender) and then take it to the U.S Postal Service for return shipping? By now, the woman was completely ensnared in the scheme, not thinking logically and wanting to help with a possible fraud case. Luckily, when she mailed the item back via USPS, she asked for a tracking receipt. That’s important given what happened a few weeks later.

When the cellphone bill arrived, it was more than $600 and included charges for the new iPhone and AirPods. Someone else received the package without paying anything and the “victim” who assisted was left with a mess. It took hours of effort, talking to the actual cellphone provider’s fraud department, explaining the sequence of events and trying to prove she wasn’t in on the scam. She was, in fact, unknowingly part of the scam. Fortunately, she still had the USPS tracking receipt and was able to provide lots of information about the scammers such as phone numbers, names, and addresses. The billing charges were eventually dropped.

The best way to protect yourself in cases like this is to never accept a random call from a “fraud department” without independently verifying with your cellphone company that the inquiry is truly from them—99% of the time it won’t be! 

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