A woman has been left feeling unsafe after allegedly finding herself caught up in a delivery scam. Nicky Louise, 27, was at home alone when a DPD delivery driver arrived to give her a parcel she hadn’t ordered.
The package was reportedly addressed to Nicky and had her address written on it. When the childminder opened the parcel, she was baffled to find two brand new iPhone 16 Pro Max devices inside, with no receipt or delivery note.
Someone arrived the next day – dressed as a DPD delivery driver – banging on her door and window to retrieve the parcel. “I knew I hadn’t ordered these, but was unsure where they had been delivered from,” Nicky said.
“The only thing was a small Tesco mobile sticker. I went online to search what to do in that situation and came across a news article about a scam where they send two phones, then a man will return to collect them in DPD uniform.
“I’d read not to hand them over. I was going to contact Tesco mobile and ask how to send them back.” The following day, before Nicky had a chance to act, a man wearing a DPD uniform knocked on her door. Nicky, who lives with her parents, said: “He said ‘I delivered an expensive parcel yesterday and I need it back’.
“Immediately, I realised we were victims of the scam I’d read about. I asked him who the parcel was addressed to and he got angry quite quickly and said to just hand it back. I told him I didn’t know what parcel he was talking about and that I hadn’t got any parcel to hand him.
“He was persistent and rude, he refused to leave and was telling me, ‘Give me your phone number’. I said no and again asked him to leave as I was uncomfortable, and he refused to leave again. I said that maybe the parcel went to somebody else as I don’t live alone and he demanded that I contact somebody from my household to come and give the parcel.
“I kept saying please leave and eventually he did, but he leant in towards me and shouted, ‘I will be coming back’. I felt really scared.” Nicky rang her father, who was unable to come home from work immediately and advised her to call the police – which she did.
She said: “They [the police] told me they were very aware of the scam and that these people can get extremely aggressive and be dangerous, so I should lock the doors, close the blinds and not answer the door to anyone. “I was told to call 999 if he returned. Later the same day, I saw the van arrive with him driving, so I called 999 and whilst on the phone, he started hammering at my door.
“He would go between the door and the window banging really hard. I was absolutely petrified! The police turned up about 15 minutes later and he had just driven off in his van and they didn’t get to him on time, but took his number plate.”
She later learned how the bizarre scam works. Nicky said: “They fraudulently order the phone on someone’s credit card and it gets sent to an address — this time it was my address. When you hand the phones over, they then receive the phones for free.
“The person whose card was used will put in a claim and then the only connection to the phone is my name and address – which will then start me getting bad credit.”
Nicky says the experience has left her feeling “a bit unsafe”. She has alerted Tesco Mobile about the incident but has not yet spoken with DPD.
She added: “It’s one thing having an online scam, but coming to my home is another level of scam, and it was awful.” After sharing the experience online, viewers have taken to the comment section to share similar incidents.
One TikTok user said: “This happened to me, when I showed him the ring door bell he did a runner.” Another person added: “I had the same thing happened to me. They set up a phone contract in your name and direct debit. That’s the scam so if you give them the phone you end up paying for it. I knew not to give it to them.”
Someone else wrote: “We had this too, we nearly gave the phone over but luckily we didn’t. Got in touch with the iPhone provider and returned it. Our identity was stolen.”
“This is a version of a known identity fraud scam that involves criminals getting hold of an individual’s personal information and using it to buy high-value items,” a DPD Company spokesperson said. “From a DPD point of view, this presents as a normal delivery and our driver is simply doing their job and delivering the original package to the correct address, unaware of the scam.
“The criminals track the delivery and then attempt to recover the consignment from the recipient, by posing as DPD staff. We would like to reassure readers that it is an incredibly rare fraud scam, but if you are impacted by it, steps you can take include reporting it to Action Fraud and contacting your bank or credit card provider and the phone provider.”