‘But I didn’t even order anything’: delivery scams take aim at whoever, apparently

CHICO » So one of my favorite parts about writing this column is the phone calls and emails from people describing scams they encounter on the day-today.

Last week I was on a bike ride when a local resident by the name of Jamie Musser called me up to tell me about a series of phone calls she’s been getting informing her of the status of her Amazon deliveries. If you’re reading this Jamie, that’s why I sounded like I was about to fall over from exhaustion.

The best part? She doesn’t even have an Amazon account, let alone is she expecting any packages from the company.

When I got home I did some digging around online and sure enough, our pals at the Federal Trade Commission are aware of these scams and have a whole page dedicated to them.

These package tracking scams usually come in the form of a phone call, or in some nefarious cases a missed delivery tag on your front door with a phone number attached.

Other ways of contact come through text or email with a fake tracking link that inevitably takes you to a fake trapping website that does God knows what to your device.

It really paints a picture of scammers going after people who don’t even use the service they are pretending to be part of as not so much a calculating evil genius but just some shmuck shooting spitballs at the ceiling to see what sticks.

That said, it’s easy to write these scams off as what they really are when you’re not expecting a delivery, but I can certainly see how scams such as these can really throw people off who might be expecting something really important or business-related. When time is of the essence it would be easy to go along with it without giving it a second thought.

Keep in mind that when you order from a provider like Amazon or Sweetwater, they keep information about deliveries in-house. The same goes for delivery companies like UPS and FedEx. You’ll only receive official emails and texts directly from the company itself.

The Federal Trade Commission offers up some solid advice: “If you receive suspicious email, text or phone messages, go to the delivery carrier’s website directly or use the retailer’s tracking tools to verify the sender’s identity and avoid these scams.”

Scam of the Week generally runs every Tuesday. Readers are welcome to contact reporter Jake Hutchison to report scams and potential scams they have come in contact with by calling 828-1329 or via email at jhutchison@chicoer.com.