The SA Post Office said the email is titled ‘Your package could not be delivered’ and states that a package can only be released once a clearance fee has been paid and includes a link.
THE SA Post Office (Sapo) has been bombarded with enquiries about fraudulent emails that appear to originate from the Post Office.
Sapo spokesperson Johan Kruger said the email scam is designed to make the receiver pay money into a scam account.
Kruger said the email is titled “Your package could not be delivered” and states that a package can only be released once a clearance fee has been paid and includes a link.
“Should the receiver click on the link, a page called Bureau de Poste d’Afrique du Sud opens, requesting payment to ‘release’ the fictitious parcel,” he said.
The official language of communication for the SA Post Office is English, and no communication is done in French, he said.
Sapo provided the following tips to find out if a message or email is a scam and not from the Post Office:
* The Post Office never asks for import duties or clearance fees in advance. If there are customs fees payable on a parcel from abroad, the client pays the fees when they collect the parcel from the Post Office counter.
* The Post Office never requests your bank account number or an online payment for customs duties.
* The tracking number on the message is invalid when entered into the postal tracking website, or refers to a parcel that was collected years ago.
Kruger said the Post Office sends customers an SMS or a collection slip when they have a parcel waiting for collection at a post office branch.
“This parcel should be collected as soon as possible to make sure it is not returned to the sender,” he warned.
Post Office branches have separate queues for different transactions and the collections queue is shorter and quicker, he said.
If you have any information about postal crimes, contact the Post Office’s toll-free crime buster hotline on 0800 020 070.
THE MERCURY
