Fake Parcel Delivery Texts in Ireland: An Post and DPD Scams

An Post: your parcel is held at our depot due to an unpaid customs fee of €1.99. Pay within 24 hours to release it, followed by a link. Thousands of Irish phones receive some version of this text every week, branded as An Post, DPD, Fastway, DHL, or UPS. The fee is tiny, the branding looks right, and plenty of people are genuinely waiting on parcels. That combination makes the fake delivery text one of the most successful scams in Ireland — and the small fee is never the point.

How the scam works, end to end

The mechanics are consistent across courier brands:

1. The text arrives from a mobile number or a sender name mimicking the courier, warning that a parcel is held, an address is incomplete, or a customs charge is due — always with a link and a deadline.
2. The link opens a lookalike site copied from the real courier's tracking pages, complete with logos and parcel references. It asks for the small fee by card.
3. You enter card details — number, expiry, security code — handing the scammers everything needed for online fraud.
4. Sometimes a second page follows, mimicking your bank and asking for a one-time code, which authorises a far larger transaction than the stated fee.

The €1.99 is bait. The catch is your card details, and potentially a drained account minutes later.

Why it fools so many people

Several factors stack in the scammer's favour:

• Everyone orders online. With parcels constantly in transit, a delivery text rarely feels out of place — even when you have nothing on order, a gift or a forgotten purchase makes it plausible.
• The amount is trivial. A small fee doesn't trigger the caution a large demand would; it feels like an administrative hiccup, not a crime scene.
• The branding is copied well. Fake sites reuse real logos, tracking layouts, and Irish-address formatting.
• Timing attacks work. Scam waves often coincide with peak shopping periods, when inboxes are full of genuine courier messages to blend in with.

Scammers don't need to know you have a parcel coming. They blast identical texts to thousands of numbers and let coincidence do the targeting.

What real couriers actually do

Here's how genuine delivery handling differs in Ireland:

• An Post leaves physical Sorry We Missed You cards, and its official tracking lives on anpost.com and its app — it doesn't demand surprise fees through texted links.
• DPD, Fastway, DHL, and UPS all provide tracking through their own official apps and websites, with reference numbers tied to specific senders — not generic held-parcel warnings.
• No reputable courier asks you to re-enter full card details through a link in an unexpected text to release an ordinary domestic parcel.
• Genuine customs charges on international parcels follow documented processes — and even then, you verify through the courier's official channels, never a texted link.

The rule is absolute: if you're expecting a parcel, open the courier's official app or type its website address yourself and track it there. Never start from the link in the text.

Red flags in the message itself

Train your eye on these tells:

• A sender that's just a mobile number for something claiming to be a national courier — or a sender name that's slightly off.
• Urgency and deadlines: pay within 24 hours or your parcel is returned — real couriers don't work like this.
• A link with a strange address: misspelled brand names, odd endings, URL shorteners. On most phones you can long-press to preview the address without opening it.
• Requests for full card details for a tiny fee, or anything asking for a bank one-time code on a courier page.
• ComReg's Likely Scam flag: texts from unregistered business sender names now get flagged by participating operators — treat a flagged message as confirmed dangerous, but remember unflagged ones can still be fake.

What to do with a suspicious delivery text

1. Don't tap the link. If you're expecting a parcel, track it through the official app or website instead.
2. Screenshot the message, then forward it to 7726 (SPAM) so your carrier can act on it.
3. Report the impersonation to the real courier — An Post, DPD, and the other major carriers all publish fraud-reporting contacts on their websites.
4. Block the sender and delete the message.
5. If you already paid: call your bank immediately on the number on your card, ask about freezing and reissuing the card, watch statements closely, and report to the Gardaí.

Fake delivery texts succeed on volume — millions sent, a fraction paid. Every report to 7726, every warning shared with family, every parcel tracked through the official app instead of a texted link makes the economics of this scam a little bit worse.