A well-known scam gets a nasty update: Fraudsters pretend to be prospective buyers on online marketplaces and ask for the purchase to be processed via an alleged parcel service. Their new trick is to use fake Post Office receipts to lend greater credibility to their story.
19.08.2025 –This is how it works:
- Fraudsters specifically search for offers on online marketplaces and initially contact the seller via the platform chat facility. From then on they usually communicate via WhatsApp.
- The criminals then claim to have already paid for the item and the postage, for example using Swiss Post.
- To prove this, they send their potential victims a photo of a fake Post Office receipt with a QR code that supposedly needs to be scanned in order to receive the money.
But #watchout: The QR code leads to a fake website where credit card information is requested. This is how the fraudsters obtain sensitive payment data.
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