Top tips for spotting parcel fraud

Fake parcel deliveries are one of the most common forms of phishing scams, especially at this time of year when we’re very likely to be ordering goods online.

Phishing texts and emails may pretend to be tracking updates, attempted delivery notifications, notices that ‘your parcel is ready for collection’, or requests for payments due.

The purpose of these scams may be to collect your personal information, install malware on your device through malicious links and downloads, or pressure you into transferring money.

If you receive any kind of delivery notification, the important thing is not to rush into action, especially if the tone of the message is unusually urgent. Take some time to check that the message is legitimate. The good news is that signs of attempted fraud are usually easy to spot.

Have you received a delivery notification from Transglobal Express and want to be sure it’s us? Here’s what to look out for.

Our domain is transglobalexpress.co.uk

In Germany, it’s transglobalexpress.de. While we use a couple of others for marketing, any order notifications or customer service emails will come from these domains.

1. Any such emails should come from an address @transglobalexpress.co.uk (or .de) – not @gmail.com or any other domain. Please note that sender addresses can be spoofed to make it look like the email came from our actual domain, so if you’re not sure, you can contact us to verify.
2. Any website links should start with https://www.transglobalexpress.co.uk/ (or .de). For tracking links, we use https://tg.express/. If the link is in the content of an email, don’t just trust the text as it appears – hover over the link without clicking to check the real URL.
3. Check for misspellings and small differences. Fraudsters will often try to trick you by making the domain look very similar to the real thing; for example, trnsglobal-express.co.uk. Also, misspellings and strange grammar in general are a sign that the message is not genuine.
4. If you are unsure about a text or email, go directly to https://www.transglobalexpress.co.uk/ (or .de) to find our contact information – don’t rely on links in a potentially fraudulent message.

Email attachments

We would advise against opening or downloading any email attachments before you have confirmed that it's a legitimate email. Attachments may contain malware that will then infect your computer or device.

Labels and invoices from Transglobal Express will always be sent in PDF format, not as Word documents.

Insurance, customs duties, and other payments

Scammers posing as parcel companies may pretend that they are “holding” your parcel and that you need to make a payment before they can complete delivery. Here are a couple of things to bear in mind:

1. Any fees charged or invoiced by Transglobal Express will be raised with our customers on their account. Our customers can log in to check any outstanding invoices or contact our customer service team to verify.
2. For international shipments, customs duties and taxes may be payable by the receiver and this payment may be collected by the carrier. However, you can check the legitimacy of the request first. If you have ordered goods online and are being asked to pay unexpected customs fees by the carrier, you should contact the seller for confirmation. If you don’t recognise the sender or the shipment, it is likely to be fraudulent. Check for the usual signs of phishing attempts (see above). Never make payments of any kind until you are absolutely sure.

You can report scams by forwarding suspicious texts for free to 7726 and suspicious emails to [email protected].

For more information, please see our fraud page.

Guidance from our carriers

You can find similar information for each of the major carriers we use:

1. DHL
2. DPD
3. Evri
4. FedEx/TNT
5. UPS

And for good measure, here are a few more:

1. Amazon
2. eBay
3. Royal Mail