The scammers started giving flowers to completely random people. The victim is left with the bouquet, but no money.
The scheme works like this.
First, a courier comes to the victim and introduces himself as a flower delivery employee. Then he gives the bouquet and leaves, without asking for anything in return. The victim is not told who the sender is, they say, a gift from an anonymous person. The person can only guess who could have made such a generous gift.
Then the victim receives a call from the same delivery service. They call about a day later. The person on the other end of the phone says that they have strict reporting requirements and they need to dictate the numbers from the SMS message. As soon as it is voiced, the scammers politely say goodbye, and a day later they steal money from the card or apply for loans.
Dictating any SMS code to a third party is a direct path to losing money or compromising personal data. It can be a code for confirming a payment, changing your online banking password, or even applying for a microloan in your name.
As in many schemes, scammers operate on the principle of social engineering. They try to evoke various emotions in victims so that they do rash acts. Scammers rush, scare, confuse, and in this case, play on a sense of duty, since the person did not pay anything for the gift and feels obligated to help.
To save money and your safety, we recommend that you do not accept orders from couriers that you did not personally place or expect.
