Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to share my really weird experience today... I didn't totally and completely get scammed, but I almost did... Let me start from the beginning:

So I FINALLY managed to get my taobao account up and running, and the first thing I order is a french press coffee pot, about which, naturally, I'm waiting on pins and needles for. And so the damned thing is supposed to arrive today, according to the taobao delivery service tracking thing.

And so mid afternoon I get a text, that says, "Hello, we have your package but your address isn't clear please call us at this number XXXXXXXX." And so i'm like, oh, okay cool, right, it's the package that I'm waiting for, better give them a call.

And so at this point you should be going like, NO DON'T DO IT!

But I totally did it. And so I call and I'm on the phone and their like, your package was held up, they found drugs in it (!!!) and I'm like

WTF

And then I'm like, so what do I do? And she tells me, you've got to call the PCB, here's there phone number XXXXXXXX.

Here's part number two where any reasonable person would be like, NO DON'T DO IT

But I totally did it. And then they pretended to be the PCB asked me all sorts of questions including the last three digits of my bank card numbers and blah blah and made up this whole freaking story about drugs in my package and also some weird things about opening 16 credit cards in my name, that being the reason why I needed to go immediate to an ATM and "report an incident" via instructions that they would give me...

So many red flags should be going up for you right now, which I somehow missed. Luckily I have a teacher who I called to ask about it, who clued my dumb ass in that this was in fact a scam. I gave them the last three digits of my bank card numbers, so the first thing I did was go to the bank to get my card number changed. If you fall for this (which you now should certainly not!!) you can go to the bank and they will switch your card number and give you a brand new card, you don't even have to barely fill out any paperwork.

So anyways, that was my crazy story. I told my boss what had happened and why I had to leave early to go to the bank, and she was like, yeah, duh, idiot, that's a scam. So apparently this is a common thing. I used to receive lots of scam text messages when I lived in Jiangsu, but this is the first one that I have gotten since I moved to Kunming. And I'm usually very alert to these types of things I swear! It was just such a terrible twist of fate that I was in fact waiting for my beloved coffee pot on the same day that I would get this scam message. Anyways, has anyone out there fallen for this shit like me? Am I the only one?

Anyways, just had to get that off my sad, gullible chest, and possible be of some help to my fellow kunmingites. Thanks for reading, cheers~

Hmmm... methinks they probably have a line on who is delivering parcels and to whom. Probably more than a coincidence that you got this call exactly the same day you were waiting for a package...

No the other weird thing was that, I know this guy who works at the bank right, and I told him the whole story, and he whips out his phone and shows me the EXACT same text message. And he didn't order a package, haha. The number that his was sent from was different from mind, but the wording was the same. I think they automate it or something...?

If the cops had stopped a package with drugs in it, the first thing you would hear is the knock on the door.

I have heard about that scam before, it seems to be pretty common.

Hiya Rachelc

Phew lucky escape! Do u know if u were charged an obscenely high rate on the phone numbers that u rang? And Im just curious to know did u report it to the cop?

Im thinking about moving to Jiangsu to study. But I sometimes have an issue with my breathing. How is the air pollution there? Im thinking of Nanjing, Wuxi or Jiangnan Daxxue.

And lastly did u ever get ur coffee pot :) ?

all the best

David

When you buy things on Taobao, do you tick the "Anonymous Purchase" box at checkout? According to my gf, unless it's ticked, third parties usually get your details and this could eventually lead to scams.

This can also happens on other websites like jd.com, suning.com, amazon.cn, dangdang.com etc. Your contact details are also often passed or sold to agencies.

I've never purchases anything on Taobao or any other website (don't speak Chinese eh, but I've actually had a phone call which I passed to my wife that said exactly the same thing. It's an information theft scam.

Online shopping is just one of the many ways they get numbers.

@Yankee No, I didn't click the anonymous purchase option! I did see it but I think I just passed it up...

@Daithi, no I never did get it, its held up at some Zhongtong delivery at some location in Kunming that I can't figure out...ugh! All I wanted was a decent cup of coffee!