Enlarge image
DHL car: Millions of people use the delivery service, which scammers take advantage of
Photo: Ralph Peters/ imago images/Ralph Peters
The North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice center warns of new phishing attempts on behalf of the parcel service DHL.
The e-mails with subject lines such as "Track and Trace DHL" say that a package could not be delivered because of a damaged address label.
Unusual: Whoever clicks on the link is connected to a chatbot that introduces itself to the mail recipient as Suzy.
"Please confirm that this is your tracking number," requests Suzy, visualized by a female-looking avatar, and, "Please indicate whether you want us to deliver this package to your home or business address."
If you decide to give Suzy your address, it doesn't end up with DHL, but with criminals.
Under no circumstances should you tell the chatbot any other data, such as your date of birth or account number.
According to consumer advocates, the entire content of the e-mail is fabricated, and an alleged photo of a package is also fake.
"It's best to move this and similar emails to the spam folder unanswered," the consumer advice center advises.
DHL is often used as a lure
Messages claiming to come from parcel service providers such as DHL, Hermes or UPS are repeatedly used as bait by criminals.
In 2020, for example, criminals tried to fish out masses of account data at Christmas time with fake parcel notifications by e-mail or SMS.
At that time, too, there was talk of problems with the delivery.
The recipients are almost always concerned that a particularly important package might not reach them.
In principle, the current scam is also easy to see through.
For example, DHL does not have a virtual assistant named Suzy, nor is the tracking number mentioned in the email likely to be one known to the recipient.
In general, if you want to check a shipment number from an email with DHL to see the status of the shipment, you should always go directly to the DHL site to avoid ending up on a fake website during this step.
Here is a link to the company's official tracking information page.
mbo