Warning! New scam involving hardcore porn DVDs being mailed unsolicited to your home

Children as young as three have been exposed to explicit images on the discs' front covers as recipients had no idea what they were opening.

We have seen at least 70 people reporting the lewd packages – of two or three DVDs – landing on their doormats this week, after confused recipients bombarded our forum with reports. However, the true number is likely to be in the hundreds.

The Porn DVD scam forum discussion, started by regular MSE user Nilrem, has now had over 23,000 views and almost 250 replies this week (please add to the discussion if you've been sent one of these DVDs).

The DVDs' titles include Breast Strokers and others which are too explicit to repeat.

Those who loaded the DVDs said they were asked on screen to text or call a number to unsubscribe, or to get a PIN to unlock the content on the DVDs – at a cost of about £10.

Dan Plant, MoneySavingExpert.com head of editorial, says: "As scams go, this is up there with the most shocking we've heard of.

"Just reading our forum shows that when these highly restricted DVDs hit the nation's doormats at random, it led to parents desperately trying to hide these surprise packages from innocent kids and potential marital spats.

"While the method's outrageous, the lesson's the same as ever – if you receive anything you didn't ask for, whether an email, a text message or in this case X-rated DVDs, question everything. And never hand over your details unless, you're 100% sure who they're going to."

Police investigating A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police says it is investigating. It's urging people not to play the DVDs, adding: "We'd advise people to use the 101 non-emergency police service to report this matter."

A Royal Mail spokesman says: "Royal Mail is urgently investigating reports of offensive material being delivered to customers.

"We understand the upset and disquiet offensive mail can cause. We do what we can to stop offensive mail entering our network."

Royal Mail prohibits the sending of obscene publications and unlawful indecent images.

Worryingly, the envelopes are personally addressed to householders, raising questions about where the company responsible has obtained such information.

MoneySavingExpert.com tried to track down the source of the DVDs, as an address with a UB postcode – which covers west London – is listed on the envelopes that contain the DVDs.

When we called a number associated with that address, we spoke to a skincare company which told us "hundreds" of people had mistakenly called it to ask about the DVDs.

The address appears to be an industrial site containing many different businesses. The skincare company did not know the source of the DVDs.

'My 3-year-old saw porn cover'

Here is a selection of comments on our forum from bemused recipients:

• Missy1980 says: "I've just opened my envelope and out popped 2 graphic porno DVDs! I was sitting with my three-year old who caught a glimpse."

• cardiffboio says: "Glad I'm not the only one to have received these in my name, saves me having to try and convince the Mrs I really didn’t order them."

• Nigel Brooks says: "The DVDs arrived addressed in my name on Monday morning. After seeing the extremely graphic images on the cover, I contacted my local police. Two officers arrived the next day and took the material away for investigation."

• Stuartzzr says: "I'm another recipient of these two discs – has me concerned about where they've sourced my full name and address as I'm pretty careful with my details."

• barrington1128 says: "I too have received these porn discs this morning. More embarrassingly, I opened them in front of my mum!"

The material is classified as R18 – which the British Board of Film Classification says "may only be shown to adults in specially licensed cinemas, and video works may be supplied to adults only in licensed sex shops".

It continues: "R18 videos may not be supplied by mail order." There doesn’t appear to be a pattern to the scam, with users in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all reporting incidents.

The shocking scam comes after Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to crack down on the "corroding" influence of pornography in society last week.