Thank you to all the scammers out there who constantly provide me with new material to write and report about. This week I am focusing on a number of emails I received claiming to be from “An Post” the Irish national postal carrier. Needless to say, they are from some back-room villains and not our beloved postal service. So, know that this is now an on-going con trick and continue reading to hear all the details and make sure you don’t get caught by these scammers.

I received my first email from “An post” (denisepupu@hotmail.com) on 05/08/21, no branding, not very convincing telling me;

Service Alerts (1): Delivery Failure; Address Incomplete. ;PARCEL/ONLINE-GATEWAY-Number: 797327 Our reference number: 0365/ 0299 anpost.ie order of 2 x “GOV.IE-POST 08/05/2021”

This is an automated email —– please do not reply to this address as replies are not monitored.

Just to let you know that your recent order could not be delivered. Please note that we attempted to deliver your item to you on 08/04/2021 and 08/05/2021.

If you are not going to be home, that’s okay. Schedule a new delivery as needed or drop off your shipments at any An Post authorized location.: https://pm.anpost.com/RF025399990IE/0970790656

Your item will be kept in our Access Point until August 06, 2021. After this period, it will be returned to the sender. Depending on the item type, the sender may be responsible for the return shipping fees.

Let’s analysis what was sent to us:

1. Anything sent from the real An Post will not be sent from a Hotmail account
2. The title bar is poorly constructed and makes no sense – it is a mix of messages to get your attention – delivery failure, address incomplete, service alert, order of 2 GOV-IE-POST.
3. The dates mentioned are not formatted as an Irish person would type them (day/month/year), they are American format (month/day/year)
4. The link brings you to a fake An post website with the real address of https://www.sad-fazenda.com.ua/deliveryupdate/tracking-info.php

This is a fairly obvious hoax but the following day I received a second email, which was much more convincing, an post branding and colour scheme built in. Reporting to be from “An Post” – real address – jonesr777@mw.k12.ny.us

Your package CE126354494IE is waiting for delivery

Your package is waiting for delivery. Confirm payment of 2.99 EUR in the following link verification must be done online in the next 3 days before it expires.

Then there is a link marked continue – which actually links to – https://anpost-services.com/public/Shop/Checkout

Now this is a pretty good landing page but not a real An post page, this page is looking for financial information, name, address, credit card details – a real haul for any scammers.

It goes without saying never, ever give any details unless you are 100% sure about the legitimacy of the website.

Keep an eye out for these emails and be on your guard, always be sure before you click links, give details or provide financial information.