The message appears to come from Spain's Post Office, Correos, and tells you "Your shipment is on its way", accompanied by a link.

But the National Police is warning that this brief message does not come from the public company but is a scam built around a fake app that has claimed a high number of victims, especially on the Costa del Sol, according to SUR sources.

The National Police warned of this scam a few days ago, but they say that cases are still being reported.

The fraud is similar to other well-known cyber scams: the unsuspecting person downloads an application to track the non-existent shipment through the link. If the user grants it all the permissions then the scam can begin.

According to sources, there are two ways that the app works – the first by using these permissions to duplicate the message, bombarding all the contacts on the device’s phonebook with the same message, thus increasing the spread of the virus. This method can add a high price to the telephone bills of users who have to pay to send SMS text messages.

The other possibility is that, through the permission authorisations that the user has given to the application to control the device, the malicious app can obtain their bank account details.

According to sources, there are numerous cases in Malaga in which people have found high charges on their bank statements, the result of both sending SMS messages and also amounts taken directly from the account through the malicious app on their phone.

This criminal activity is known as 'smishing', which comes from the combination of the SMS and 'phishing' terms.

The National Police warn of the potential risk of these systems and recommends always verifying the sender of a message that contains links, and not accessing a link if you are not you are one hundred per cent sure that it is a genuine, secure website.