‘Free phone’ scams are becoming increasingly common, and there’s now a new one to watch out for. With this version, a brand new phone is left on your doorstep and – unusually – the scammer didn’t use your money to buy it.

This is just the latest in a long line of scams involving new phones delivered to your home …

The classic ‘free phone’ scam

The classic free phone scam is where the scammer manages to impersonate you to your mobile carrier and order a new phone. Your carrier sends the phone to your address, and because the scammer knows it is coming, they will aim to hang out close to your home in order to get to the package before you do.

It’s essentially a form of porch piracy where the scammer knows in advance what is in the package and when it will be arriving, and in this case it’s the scammer who gets the free phone.

You can limit the risks of this by ensuring that you use 2FA protections on your mobile account and indeed all other accounts where available.

Another classic is where you have ordered a phone, you get a call apparently from the company supplying it, claiming that they accidentally sent you the wrong one and giving you instructions for returning it. You are in fact sending your brand new phone to the scammer.

The latest ‘free phone’ scam

CNET reports on a new type of free phone scam I haven’t encountered before.

In this version, a package addressed to you arrives on your doorstep containing a phone you haven’t ordered. They hope that some people will be thankful for their apparent luck and activate the phone, setting it up with all of their personal data.

You activate the phone and input your personal information. Then it locks, freezes up and goes dark. You are now a cautionary tale with a useless phone, and some scammer out there has your personal information.

The piece outlined some other phone scams out there. Expert advice is if you do receive an unexpected package, then don’t engage with the contents.

“Engaging means plugging it in, powering it on, scanning a QR code or inserting a SIM card,” Coughlin says. “Any one of those can hand a scammer access to your accounts, your identity, or your phone number.”

He adds: “We’ve seen cheap phones preloaded with malware, SIM cards designed to route fraudulent activity through your name and QR codes that drop credential-stealing pages on your device the second you scan them. So leave it alone.”

Have you come across any other particularly creative or devious scams? Please share in the comments.

• Official Apple Store on Amazon
• Discounted AirPods Pro 3
• Wireless CarPlay adapter
• AirTag holders and accessories
• Mac Pro-style Mac mini casing
• NordVPN – privacy-first VPN with no logs and independent audits to verify

Photo by James A. Molnar on Unsplash