yup, now with EU/Brexit import duties and VAT on everything, the carriers (DHL/UPS/FedEx) have been made responsible for collecting the fees on the govts. behalf, but they also don't want to slow down delivery, stop it at customs, send a letter to you, wait 3 days for you to pay, etc - so they send a text with a link to a really shady payment gateway where they tell you there's a fee to pay. Mind you, this is what the legitimate carriers do.
After that, it was easy for fraudsters to just spam links to everyone to similar looking pages. I often have 5-6 pending order now, since COVID I buy literally everything online, and I can't keep track of everything that's inbound. I'm sure a lot of people are in a similar situation, which makes this scam very effective.
This only makes sense if the courier has your digital contact info. Some of them don't even hold your parcel now, they just send it anyway, alongside an invoice with the duties due.
After that, it was easy for fraudsters to just spam links to everyone to similar looking pages. I often have 5-6 pending order now, since COVID I buy literally everything online, and I can't keep track of everything that's inbound. I'm sure a lot of people are in a similar situation, which makes this scam very effective.