A courier service scam

I just wanted to inform you about a scam going around that I hadn’t come across before. I thought you may want to inform your readers of it.

I’m currently selling an item on Facebook marketplace and a few local Facebook items for sale sites. In these uncertain economic times, many people are selling unwanted items to help raise some extra money.

Yesterday someone offered to buy it. Their FB account seemed OK, we agreed a price and they said that they wanted to send a courier to collect it who would pay me cash on pick up, the courier company is DPD Express. It sounds plausible so far, the courier driver would give me the cash, so no problem.

I checked with DPD express and cash cannot be sent with a driver for any reason. This applies to all courier companies.

I googled it a bit further and found out that it’s a scam, and very soon the person buying the item will ask for an insurance to be paid on the item which will be refunded once the item arrives. This will be around €100 or maybe more. Once it’s paid, no courier arrives.

I haven’t replied to their kind offer.

Sean Flynn