USPS text scam: how to tell, without guessing

The rule that is true, and the one that is not

The advice that circulates most widely is that the Post Office never sends text messages. It is easy to remember, it feels safe, and it is wrong — which matters, because a wrong rule fails in both directions. It makes you throw away messages you asked for, and it leaves you defenceless the day a fake one arrives just after a real one.

The correct version is on the Postal Inspection Service’s own page and it has two parts in a single sentence. The Postal Service “will not send customers text messages or e-mails without a customer first requesting the service with a tracking number, and it will NOT contain a link”.

Read that as two conditions rather than one. The first is that you started it. The second is that a genuine message has nothing in it to press. A message that fails either test fails, and the second test is the one that saves people who are, in fact, waiting for a parcel — because expecting a delivery is not evidence about any particular message, and the people sending these know that everybody is expecting a delivery.

The same page is blunt about what to do when both conditions are not met: “If you never signed up for a USPS tracking request for a specific package, then don’t click the link!”

What a genuine tracking message looks like, and who starts it

Text Tracking is a real service, which is why the blanket rule does damage. The Postal Service describes it plainly: “USPS Text Tracking is a mechanism by which customers can be notified of the status of their package.” And it describes how a conversation begins — with the customer, who sends a tracking number to short code 28777, which the Post Office spells 2USPS on the keypad. Then, in its own words: “The text reply from USPS will be the latest tracking information for the item.”

So the sequence runs the other way round from the scam. You write first, to a short code, with a number you already have; the reply is a status. There is also a route where you register for updates on a specific tracking number on the website after tracking a package there — again, something you set off yourself.

Nothing in that service begins with a message arriving out of nowhere. That single observation settles most of the cases people write in about, without anybody having to examine the wording, the sender or the link.

A note on the sender, since it is the first thing people look at. The Postal Inspection Service says the service “utilizes the 5-digit short codes to send and receive SMS to and from mobile phones” — and a short code is a rented slot rather than a company, so the number a message arrives from cannot be traced back to anybody by you. It is not the piece of evidence it looks like.

The move that does not require you to be right about the message

Everything above is about telling a real message from a fake one. There is a better move, which is to make the question irrelevant, and it is the Federal Trade Commission’s first piece of advice on exactly this scam: “Verify delivery information independently.” In full: “If you think a text is about a real delivery, don’t give information or click on any links in the message. Instead, go to the online retail site or account you ordered your item from to look up the shipping and tracking information for your package.”

That route works whichever the message was. If the parcel is real you find it in the order. If there is no order, there is no parcel, and the message has answered itself. Either way you never had to judge the message, which is the point — the message was written by somebody whose whole job was to survive being judged.

The FTC also describes what the link is for, and it is worth knowing because it explains why the damage is not undone by closing the page: “the click takes you to a look-alike of a real website where they’ll tell you to enter personal or financial information. If you pay, that money — along with your credit card number, name, address, and anything else you entered — will go straight to the scammer.” The loss happens at the typing, not at the click.

Reporting it, and what each route is actually for

There are three destinations and they do different jobs, which is why the Postal Inspection Service lists them separately rather than as alternatives.

The Postal Inspection Service itself takes reports of this specific scam by email, at spam@uspis.gov, and it asks for a particular set of things: “Without clicking on the web link, copy the body of the suspicious text message and paste into a new email”, then “Provide your name in the email, and also attach a screenshot of the text message showing the phone number of the sender and the date sent”. It also asks for the consequences if there were any — whether you clicked, lost money, gave information, or saw an effect on your credit. It states that it will contact you if more is needed.

Your own mobile network is the one that can stop the next message rather than investigate this one, and it is reached by forwarding the message to the short code 7726. The Postal Inspection Service asks for that as well as the email, noting it “will assist with reporting the scam phone number”.

And the Federal Trade Commission takes the attempt itself, at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. That is the same destination whatever channel an attempt arrived on, which is the one thing that does not change with the channel.

If you did click and did type something in, the Postal Inspection Service’s instruction is immediate and specific: “If you have already interacted with the URL provided (even if you did not click ‘submit’), please notify your financial institution.”

The same message with a different name on it

The Postal Service is the most impersonated name in these messages, but nothing above depends on which courier is named. The FTC makes the point in passing when it describes the lure: “there’s a good chance that text message that says it’s from USPS (or FedEx…or DHL…) is really from a scammer.”

The structure is identical every time. A delivery problem you did not know about, an unexpected charge or a re-delivery to arrange, urgency, and one link. The reason it works is not that the wording is clever but that almost everybody is waiting for something, so the message does not have to be aimed at you to hit you.

Which is why the route round it is the same too. Go to the shop, not to the message. The carriers differ; the order you placed is in one place and you know where it is.