You receive a call: your parcel, sent from an address you do not recognise, is “held at customs” for a “small fee” to avoid charges or release. The caller is poised to take a UPI payment.
Why it feels real
Common mistakes
- Panicking and paying the small amount to close the call.
- Sharing the OTP that follows the payment attempt.
- Believing the name-drop of a government agency over any document you cannot verify.
Scammers pair an official-sounding agency (customs, the post office, police) with a believable amount — a few hundred rupees, small enough to pay without thinking. The urgency is the engineering; paying is the goal.
Why it matters
- The parcel usually does not exist; the invented tracking number exists only in the script.
- Small amounts are collected in volume — the maths of the scam works on thousands of ‘small’ payments.
- Mentioning the Customs Act by number makes it no more real.
Real procedures never work this way
Key takeaways
- No agency collects customs via a phone call.
- Small requests, urgent tone, invented parcel — end the call.
- Report; your single report protects the next hundred targets.
- Real customs duties follow written notices, reference numbers and formal payment channels — never a WhatsApp call.
- Official couriers and the postal service chase the recipient, not the other way round, for legitimate dues.
- A government seizure is documented, not collected by a caller into a pocket.
What you should do
- Hang up. Do not call the number back.
- If in doubt, trace the parcel only through the official tracker of the courier or India Post.
- Report the number and call at cybercrime.gov.in — repeat scammers are often already flagged.