Is That Parcel Text a Scam? Smishing & Delivery Scams Explained for UK Small Businesses

If you run a small business, you probably get a steady flow of deliveries.

Laptops. Parts. Stock. Uniforms. Office supplies. Customer returns. Specialist tools.

So when a text message says “Your parcel is waiting, pay a small fee to reschedule” it can feel believable – especially when you’re busy, between meetings, or your team is covering the phones.

That’s exactly why the delivery scam has become such a reliable trick for criminals. It’s quick, it’s cheap to send at scale, and it targets your staff at the point where they’re most likely to act fast.

Scammers do ramp these messages up during busier shopping periods (including Christmas), but this is an all-year problem for SMEs – and it only takes one click to cause disruption.

This guide explains what’s going on, how to spot it, and how to put a simple safety net around your people and devices without turning cybersecurity into a full-time job.

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The Quick Answer

A delivery scam is a fake parcel text or email designed to trick you into clicking a link, paying a small fee, or entering your login details. If you’re asking “is this delivery text a scam?”, the safest rule for cybersecurity for SMEs is: don’t click the link. Verify delivery details through your supplier or the courier’s official site (typed in manually), and report it internally and externally. For IT security and small business protection, use a simple layered safety net that covers both people (training and anti-phishing) and devices (endpoint protection, patching and backup) to reduce the chance a single click turns into downtime, account takeover, or invoice fraud.

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What Is a Delivery Scam (In Plain English)?

A delivery scam is when someone pretends to be a courier or delivery company to trick you into doing something you wouldn’t normally do.

Usually, that “something” is one of these:

• Clicking a link
• Entering your email password or Microsoft 365 login
• Paying a small “fee” (which is often the start of a bigger fraud)
• Installing an app or giving device permissions
• Sharing personal or business information (address, date of birth, bank details)

The message is designed to feel normal because deliveries are normal.

And in a business setting, it’s even more believable because multiple people might be ordering things — meaning the recipient often thinks, “It could be for us.”

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What Is Smishing – and Why Is It Catching Businesses Out?

Smishing is phishing via SMS (text messages).

Phishing emails are still common, but smishing has a few advantages for scammers:

• Texts feel more urgent and personal than email
• People are more likely to click links on mobile
• Many staff are used to genuine delivery updates arriving by SMS
• It often bypasses the “I’ll check with IT later” mindset because it feels like a small admin task

In a lot of SMEs, the first person who sees the message is also the person who’s juggling five other jobs – reception, office admin, accounts, operations, site manager, owner.

Smishing is a real business problem, not just an “annoying spam text” problem.

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“Is This Delivery Text a Scam?” 10 Quick Checks for Your Team

If you want a simple staff rule, it’s this:

Pause. Check. Confirm. Then act.

Here are 10 quick checks your team can use when they’re thinking, “is this delivery text a scam?”

1. Were you actually expecting a parcel?
   If you didn’t order anything and nobody nearby did either, that’s a red flag.
2. Does it create urgency or pressure?
   “Final notice”, “delivery failed”, “returning to sender today” — scammers rely on panic.
3. Is the link strange or shortened?
   Many delivery scam links are random letters, look-alike domains, or shortened URLs.
4. Is it asking for a “small fee” to reschedule or release a parcel?
   This is a classic delivery scam pattern.
5. Is it asking you to log in to email or Microsoft 365?
   Couriers don’t need your Microsoft login. Criminals do.
6. Is the message generic?
   “Dear customer” and vague wording is common in scams.
7. Does the sender number look odd?
   Random mobile numbers, international codes, or mismatched sender IDs can be a giveaway.
8. Are there spelling/grammar issues or unusual phrasing?
   Not always present, but still common.
9. Does it ask you to install an app or open an attachment?
   That’s high risk. Don’t do it.
10. Can you verify it another way?
    Check your order confirmation email, supplier portal, or official courier tracking (typed in manually — not via the text link).

If you want to make this stick, turn it into a 30-second internal policy:

• No clicking delivery links on work devices.
• Verify through official portals or known contacts instead.
• When in doubt, forward it to a nominated person (or IT support).

Simple beats perfect.

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What Happens If Someone Clicks?

A delivery scam isn’t always about the “£1.99 reschedule fee”.

For businesses, the bigger risk is what happens next.

Common outcomes after a click

• Credential theft: someone enters their Microsoft 365 login, and criminals take over the account.
• Mailbox compromise: attackers sit in email quietly and watch invoices, payment approvals, supplier conversations.
• Invoice fraud: criminals change bank details on invoices or intercept payment instructions.
• Malware infection: a download runs in the background and spreads.
• Ransomware events: files get encrypted and the business is held to ransom (even if the original scam looked harmless).

Why SMEs feel it more

Large organisations usually have layers of protection and dedicated internal teams. Many small businesses don’t — and that’s exactly why criminals target them.

For an SME, a single successful delivery scam can mean:

• Staff locked out of email for a day
• A week of downtime while devices are cleaned up
• Suppliers not getting paid on time
• Customers not being responded to
• A serious reputational headache if data is exposed

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Cybersecurity for SMEs: How to Reduce Delivery Scam Risk

Most small business owners don’t want more tools.

They want fewer problems.

The most effective cybersecurity for SMEs approach is to cover three areas:

1) People: reduce the “click risk”

Your staff aren’t the problem – they’re just busy.

What helps:

• Short, practical security awareness training (no jargon)
• Regular “spot the scam” reminders with real examples
• A culture where staff can report suspicious messages without embarrassment
• Clear rules for deliveries and payments

If you only do one thing here:
teach the habit of not clicking links from unsolicited texts.

Test your team’s cybersecurity readiness with a quick test by clicking below:

2) Process: make the “right action” easy

A good process removes guesswork.

Examples that work well in SMEs:

• A shared inbox or process for delivery notifications (where practical)
• Approved supplier lists and centralised ordering
• A standard rule that payment changes must be verified by phone using known numbers
• Clear “who do I tell?” steps for suspicious texts/emails

3) Technology: stop what people miss

Even good people with good intentions will occasionally click.

That’s why you need technology to:

• Block malicious links
• Detect suspicious email behaviour
• Protect credentials
• Secure devices (especially laptops used at home/on the road)
• Back up key data so a bad day doesn’t become a business-ending event

This is where most SMEs get stuck – because “tech security” can feel complex and fragmented.

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Small Business IT Security: The Simple Safety Net Most SMEs Are Missing

If your IT security small business setup is mostly:

• Basic antivirus
• A few passwords written down somewhere
• “We’ll deal with it if it happens”

…you’re not alone. But delivery scams and smishing are designed to get past exactly that level of protection.

A practical small business safety net usually includes:

• Email anti-phishing protection (because scams often move from text to email)
• Security awareness training that fits real life
• Dark web monitoring (so you know if business logins have been exposed)
• Microsoft 365 backup (because cloud data still needs protecting)
• Managed endpoint protection on laptops and PCs (antivirus + behaviour monitoring)
• Patching and vulnerability scanning (so attackers can’t exploit known weaknesses)
• Device backup (so you can recover quickly)

The challenge is that SMEs don’t want to buy, manage, and renew six different products from six different providers.

They want one simple, reliable solution.

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How Yellowcom Helps: K365 User + K365 Express (People and Devices Covered)

Yellowcom’s approach is straightforward:

Put a simple, secure safety net around your people and your devices — managed for you — and keep it easy to budget for with one unified bill.

That’s where the two bundles fit:

K365 User: protect the people scammers target

Delivery scams and smishing usually succeed because they trick a person first.

K365 User is designed to reduce that risk by protecting identities and improving staff awareness, including:

• Security awareness training (SATT) to help staff spot scams in the real world
  (because “don’t click links” is easy to say and hard to remember in a busy day)
• Anti-phishing protection (Graphus) to detect and prevent email-based attacks
  (often the next step after a delivery scam text)
• Dark web monitoring (Dark Web ID) to alert you if staff credentials are exposed
  (so you can respond before criminals use them)
• Microsoft 365 cloud backup (Spanning) so emails and files can be restored quickly
  (crucial if a scam leads to account compromise)
• SaaS alerts to flag suspicious activity inside trusted apps
  (helpful when attackers try to blend in)

In plain English: it helps stop the human-driven part of the attack.

K365 Express: protect the devices your business runs on

Even if someone clicks, your devices shouldn’t be left to fend for themselves.

K365 Express (Endpoint Express) focuses on laptops, PCs, and servers — the assets that keep your business running — with tools that quietly work in the background, including:

• Remote monitoring and management (Datto RMM) so issues can be spotted and fixed faster
• Advanced antivirus (Datto AV) for day-to-day protection
• Endpoint detection and response (Datto EDR) to identify suspicious behaviour, not just known viruses
• Advanced patching to keep common apps (browsers, conferencing, PDF readers) up to date
  (a big deal, because many attacks exploit old vulnerabilities)
• Ransomware detection to catch threats early
• Endpoint backup so you can recover files if the worst happens

In plain English: it helps stop the device-driven part of the attack, and helps you recover quickly if something gets through.

Why this matters for delivery scam defence

Delivery scams and smishing don’t neatly fit into “email problem” or “device problem”.

They’re both.

They start with a person, move through messages, and then reach accounts and devices.

That’s why the combination of K365 User + K365 Express is so effective for SMEs: it covers the two areas criminals rely on most – people and endpoints – without making you stitch together a complex security stack.

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What To Do If You Think You’ve Been Hit by a Delivery Scam

If someone has clicked a link or entered details, speed matters – but you still want calm, clear steps.

Here’s a sensible SME-first response:

1. Stop and isolate
   • Don’t click anything else.
   • If a download happened, disconnect the device from Wi-Fi (if possible).
2. Report internally
   • Staff should know exactly who to tell (owner/manager/IT support).
   • No blame. Just action.
3. Secure accounts
   • Change the password that was entered (and anywhere it was reused).
   • Check for unusual sign-ins and mailbox rules.
   • If in doubt, reset access and force sign-out.
4. Check devices
   • Run a proper endpoint scan.
   • Look for new apps, browser extensions, or permissions that shouldn’t be there.
5. Watch payments and supplier conversations
   • Be extra cautious around bank detail changes and invoice emails for the next few weeks.
6. Capture evidence
   • Keep screenshots of the message and the link (do not keep clicking it).
   • This helps your IT team respond properly.

The goal is to reduce damage quickly and prevent the “second stage” of the attack (account takeover, invoice fraud, ransomware).

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Delivery Scam FAQs for Business Owners

Are delivery scams only a consumer problem?

No. A delivery scam works even better on businesses because deliveries are routine and the message often reaches someone busy.

Can a delivery scam text compromise Microsoft 365?

Yes — if the link takes someone to a fake sign-in page and they enter credentials. That can lead to mailbox compromise and wider access.

If we have antivirus, are we covered?

Basic antivirus helps, but delivery scams often focus on credentials and behaviour-based attacks, not obvious viruses. You typically need layered protection (people + email + devices + backup).

What’s the simplest way to reduce risk fast?

Make it policy that staff do not click delivery links from unsolicited texts, and back it up with:

• training they’ll actually remember
• anti-phishing protection
• endpoint security and backup

That’s the difference between hoping and controlling.

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Next Steps: A Simple, Unified Way to Protect Your Business

If delivery scams and smishing are on your radar, you’re already thinking like a responsible owner.

The next step is making sure your protection matches the reality of how modern scams work — across people, email, and devices — without creating more admin for you. Check out your Cyber-readiness with a quick 60-second test here: https://resources.yellowcom.co.uk/en/free-phishing-test

If you’d like to see how Yellowcom packages this into straightforward bundles (including K365 User and K365 Express) with one unified bill, you can explore the full suite here: https://yellowcom.co.uk/simplified-managed-it-cybersecurity-bundles/

Contact us today to organise a free IT Health Check and let’s get your business and your people protected.