Customs clearance scam

The customs clearance scam is another email type scam in it's long list of scams. To avoid being a victim of this scam, let's look at it's approach and how it works.

First, you will receive an email claiming to be from a certain countries custom office. So far, they are only targeting US residents, but it is a matter of time before they spread elsewhere.

They will use the real logo's of the customs, and even the real names of the high ranking officers there in their email. In the email, they will claim that there is a package sent to you from a certain person. The name they will use is random, but they might try to make that person more significant by adding certain titles to the person's name, like Dr. The customs clearance scam will try to make it look as legit as possible in almost every way.

They will claim that they need your confirmation that you know the person and that you acknowledge the package so that they can send it to you. The email itself will be very short and made to look very professional. All you need to do is reply to that email. Once you do reply, they will send you a new email.

In this new email, they will claim that they cannot approve the package because there is a big amount of money in it. For this part, they will even send you some fake pictures of money being handled by some government officers. They will give you many reasons why the money can't be cleared and how you can clear it.

Most of the time they will claim that it is because of certain duties not being paid, or that you need to purchase a certain certificate for them to be able to bring the package into the country and send it to you. They will direct you to a website where you can either pay for the taxes or buy the certificates.

I think it is now quite obvious what this scam is. They are after your credit card. The website that they will send you to, will be made to look very professional and they will use logos of the real companies to try to fool you.

They will use a fake picture to try to lure you, so please be very careful of this scam, and never reveal your credit card to them, or even reply to them for that matter.

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