“Your package could not be delivered” is an unusually efficient scam message.
The sender does not need to know whether you ordered something.
Enough people are waiting for enough packages that the message will eventually land on somebody at exactly the right moment.
The United States Postal Service warns about smishing messages that impersonate delivery services and use lures such as a problem with the shipping address or a package waiting at the Post Office. The goal is to pull the recipient toward a site that requests personal or financial information.
USPS also states something worth remembering when a page suddenly asks for a small “redelivery” charge: USPS does not charge a fee for redelivery.
See the USPS Scams & Scheme Alerts.
The copied tracking page supplies the missing credibility
A delivery scam becomes more convincing after the click.
Instead of a crude form, the victim may see familiar carrier colors, logos, progress bars, tracking language, and fields that resemble the real company’s site. The page can claim that delivery failed because an address must be corrected or a minor fee must be paid.
The amount may be deliberately small.
A $1 or $3 charge feels more like postage than theft, which makes entering a payment card seem reasonable. But the valuable part may be the card information itself, along with the victim’s name, address, phone number or other data entered into the fake page.
The cloned appearance does not make the seller, carrier or tracking record real.
Check the shipment without using the message
If a delivery notice seems plausible, verify it independently.
Open the carrier’s official website or app yourself. If you have a genuine tracking number from the retailer or order confirmation, enter it there. Do not rely on the link in the unexpected text or email to tell you which site is the carrier.
If the message claims a payment is required, check the carrier’s published policies before entering financial information.
This is particularly useful because the scam’s strongest evidence is often coincidence: you really are expecting a package.
That coincidence proves only that packages are common.
It does not prove that the message came from the company carrying yours.
The cloned tracking page is designed to make an ordinary delivery delay feel like a transaction that must be completed immediately.
The safer approach is to leave the transaction behind and ask the real carrier what is actually happening.