Warning as hundreds hit by Hermes delivery text scam

Residents from Droitwich have been among those targeted and have written on social media about the new attempt to steal their money.

The scams start out as a text message saying you have either missed a delivery or there is a fee to pay for a parcel. They include a link that takes you through to enter details or make a small payment.

But Hermes never asks for payments via text – it only sends links that let you view parcel tracking.

Because customers have wised-up to this, scammers are now including other details in the message to mimic real Hermes texts by offering links to ‘track’ a parcel.

Some now include an estimated time of delivery and the names of big retailers, and they are sometimes followed up shortly after with a fake missed delivery notification from the same number.

One Droitwich resident said they spotted it was a scam as the website given to check out the 'missed parcel' was close to real, but had ‘myh.ermes' in the web address.

Bill Green, writing on Spotted Droitwich, said he had one of the texts.

“It says I have missed a delivery and I need to pay a small admin fee to get it redelivered,” he said.

“No doubt they would ask for your credit card details for the fee and bingo they’re in the money. Luckily I wasn’t expecting anything as ignored it. But it is convincing beware.”

Hetty Cooley said: “I had the same wanting a payment to reschedule the delivery it’s definitely a scam - I hadn’t ordered anything.”

Tracy Spence added: “It’s definitely a scam I’ve had the same text a few times, I’ve blocked it now.”

Advice has been issued by police forces across the UK to residents to prevent them from falling victim.

It says: “There’s been a resurgence in fake Hermes texts trying to lure you into bank transfer scams.

"Scam texts claiming to be from delivery company Hermes have been circulating for a long time, but recently scammers behind them have been trying to make their attempts to con you more convincing.”