The Bradley County Sheriff’s Office has learned of a new scam occurring in the area that is in the form of “delivery notice” postage cards.
These fraudulent postage cards claim that the recipient’s package is being held and provides a phone number to call in order to schedule delivery. Once the recipient calls the indicated phone number, the scammer will attempt to gain personal identification and financial information, claiming it is needed in order to “verify the correct package recipient.”
Scams of this type will typically appear during the holiday shopping season to prey on the many people expecting packages in the mail.
In order to protect yourself and loved ones from this scam, the BCSO offers the following tips to identify this scam:
1. If the card does not contain a company logo indicating what carrier attempted to make the delivery, it is most likely a fraudulent notice and should be discarded.
2. If the indicated phone number on the card contains a local area code, it is most likely not a way to communicate with major shipping companies and should be discarded.
3. If unusual work hours are indicated, it is most likely a fraudulent scammer and should be discarded.
If you receive a fraudulent “delivery notice” that matches these identifiers and/or resembles the provided example, we advise that you discard of it immediately and do not respond in any way.