Fake Delivery Texts in France
Smishing campaigns impersonating La Poste, Colissimo and DPD steal card details from French online shoppers with fake parcel-release fee demands.
Part of: Fake Delivery Texts
Last reviewed: 1 June 2026
Fake delivery smishing is consistently ranked among the top cybercrimes affecting French consumers by Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr. Criminals send millions of SMS messages claiming to be from La Poste, Colissimo, Chronopost, DPD or DHL, informing recipients that a parcel requires a €1–€2 release fee before delivery.
The campaigns are most intense during the 'soldes' (January and July), the Noël shopping season and around school-return periods when parcel volumes are highest and recipients are primed to expect deliveries. French consumers' high rate of e-commerce usage makes the pretexts especially convincing.
How this scam works on France
The SMS uses La Poste or Colissimo branding and links to a site with a .fr or .co domain resembling laposte.fr. The page presents a small payment form requesting full card details for a nominal release fee. Card details harvested are used immediately for larger fraudulent transactions.
Android recipients are sometimes asked to install a 'suivi colis' (parcel tracking) app — actually a banking trojan — that intercepts one-time passwords from French banks such as Crédit Agricole, BNP Paribas and Société Générale.
A variant targets French business owners with an invoice for 'frais de douane' (customs duties) on an import shipment, with card-detail submission required to release goods from a customs hold that does not exist.
Common red flags
- SMS about a parcel from an unknown number
- Link domain does not exactly match the official carrier website
- Small fee required to release a parcel — French carriers do not operate this way
- Request to install a mobile app from a link in the SMS
- Poor French or slightly awkward phrasing not consistent with official communications
How to protect yourself
- Track parcels through the official La Poste app or by typing laposte.fr directly
- Never enter card details on pages reached via SMS links
- Report suspicious SMS to 33700 (the French anti-spam SMS number)
- If you have entered card details, call your bank immediately
- Install anti-phishing security on your smartphone
How to report it
- 33700: forward the suspicious SMS to 33700 — France's official spam SMS hotline
- Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr — online incident report and victim guidance
- Signal.spam.fr — for email-based phishing
Frequently asked questions
Does La Poste or Colissimo ever ask for payment via SMS to release a parcel?
No. Any customs duties on international parcels are notified by official letter or collected by the carrier at the door, never through an SMS link. Forward any such SMS to 33700.