An Ontario woman said she was surprised when a laptop was delivered to her door that she didn’t order, but it had her address on the label.
“There was a delivery and I found out it was a MacBook Pro worth about $4,900. We didn’t order it, it had someone else’s name on it, but it was our address,” said Denise Baillargeon of Etobicoke.
Baillargeon said after the laptop showed up at their home her husband noticed a pending charge for it on their Costco account and not long after that someone came to their door to pick it up.
“The Uber driver said ‘I have a requisition to pick up a package that was sent to the wrong address’ and I said you can’t have this package because we’re on the hook for $5,000 for it,” said Baillargeon.
Concerned, the couple contacted Costco and the police. It appears someone ordered the package with the couple’s credit card information, through their Costco account, and once it was delivered, thieves planned to take it, but Baillargeon brought it inside before they could.
“They were waiting hoping that no one was going to be home at our house and they were going to steal this package and I think our house was being watched,” said Baillargeon.
Claudiu Popa, a cybersecurity expert, said it’s a new twist on an old scam. Before thieves could steal a credit card and ship a package almost anywhere, but now that’s harder to do which is why they are shipping packages to addresses associated with the stolen credit card information.
“The thing about fraud is that in most cases we never know how the financial information is stolen,” said Popa.
Formerly known as the “delivery” or “drop ship” scam, Popa said it’s now referred to as the “double decker” scam because thieves need to hack two sources of information to make it work.
“They steal one piece of identity and one piece of financial information and then they put them together to make the fraud happen,” said Popa.
In the case of the laptop, Costco took it back and Baillargeon did not incur any charges, but she wanted to warn others in case you have a strange package show up at your door.
“Other people should know not to hand over a package to someone that has someone else’s name on it even if it has your address,” said Baillargeon.
It’s important to bring packages in as soon as you can and use different passwords for your various accounts in case one does get hacked.
Always keep a close eye on your bank account and credit card statements as well for any suspicious activity.