I have just received an e-mail from my daughter with this message:-

Royal Mail postal scam!

Can you circulate this around especially as Xmas is fast approaching - it has been confirmed by Royal Mail.

The Trading Standards Office are making people aware of the following scam :

A card is posted through your door from a company called PDS (Parcel
Delivery Service) suggesting that they were unable to deliver a parcel and
that you need to contact them on 0906 6611911 (a premium rate number).

DO NOT call this number, as this is a mail scam originating from Belize.

If you call the number and you start to hear a recorded message you will already
have been billed 15 for the phone call.
If you do receive a card with these details,
then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 02072396655 or ICSTIS
(the premium rate service regulator) at www.icstis.org.uk
> or your local trading standards office.
This is a genuine scam and is under investigation by ICSTIS.

You have been forewarned!
kim

The vast majority of emails asking you to "circulate it to all your friends" are hoaxes. You are being asked to spread the hoax. In this (rare) case the warning is apparently based on a true event which occurred a year ago, but it is unlikely that anyone trying it now would use the same details and of course the telephone number has been shut down. See http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/pds.asp and http://www.icstis.org.uk/pdfs_news/email.pdf.

Thanks for that Kayak, I have just received confirmation of that with further info that an attempt is being made to renew the scam but with a different Tel. number. Hopefully the bastards will be discovered before any harm is done,
kim