A "wave" of delivery fraud has hit Belgium over this year's holiday period, with the vast majority of scams involving phishing emails and text messages, which are designed to elicit the disclosure of sensitive personal information.
According to l'Avenir, fraudsters typically impersonate emails or text messages from established merchant sites (e.g. Amazon) or delivery services (e.g. bpost).
Their messages will purport to bear bad news (e.g. "Your package has not been successfully delivered") and/or will invite you to take action as soon as possible to ensure your parcel's delivery (e.g. "You must finalize the delivery form").
They will then ask you to submit sensitive information about yourself, which usually includes your banks details or email password.
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According to the website Safeonweb.be, which is run by Belgium's Centre for Cyber Security, the best way to avoid being scammed is to avoid clicking on any suspicious links. However, if you do happen to click on a link which subsequently turns out to be suspicious, you should close the link as soon as possible.
You should under no circumstances disclose any sensitive personal data or passwords.
All suspicious emails can be forwarded to suspicious@safeonweb.be, while suspicious text messages can be screenshotted and sent to the same address.
If you do get scammed, you should cancel your bank card and inform the police as soon as possible.
