Amazon ‘brushing’ scam. I don’t understand it

[Hummusandstuff]

Hi all. Apparently this scam is really common. For the last three days I have received parcels from Amazon addressed to me with my correct address on and delivered by the usual courier.
I order quite regularly and am expecting a few things but usually choose the ‘delivery day’ option to save the couriers delivering multiple days. Assumed this has gone wrong and my stuff had been dispatched early.
Have opened the parcels just now and I didn’t order this stuff.
Google tells me this is the very common ‘brushing scam’ where sellers send fake parcels of cheap items to boost their seller scores.
I would have expected the scammers to send lightweight things but one item is a 6 pack of 1.5 litre mineral water!
Advice is to send tracking info from the label to Amazon but Google says they don’t do anything about it and tell recipients to keep or throw the items.
Apparently some people get this for months with dozens of parcels. My poor courier! The poor planet! The plastic 😞.
the other two parcels were:
Multi pack of silicone muffin trays.
pack of 6 of those giant checked laundry bags.

Anyone else had this?

The one I had didn't have my name on it, just a bunch of random letters but it was my address.

I've noticed a few things on amazon where, when you look into the reviews, they're clearly not for what is being sold in the listing too so they've used an old listing that they've built up for other cheap stuff they've "sold" and have now changed the product to something more expensive but totally different.

I've also have several cards in items or emails from sellers offering a refund or gift card if I will leave them a 5 star review. One was an 11 pound item where they offered a 15 pound gift card if I did a 5 star review and sent them a picture of it! It's dodgy all over and the sad thing is when you check the feedback, most people have taken the seller up on the deal and there's only a tiny number of 1 star reviews calling them out on it.

It really is worth reading any low star reviews if your item is not sold by amazon itself.

Even if its dispatched or fulfilled by Amazon on behalf of a seller still read all the reviews before jumping and spending anything as there's a high number of dodgy sellers there.

If any amazon scammers want to send me some useful items I wont complain 😁

I had seeds and a book - about 12 months apart - did worry at first - but never had any problems with amazon account and it's not been a regular thing.

Yes, we’ve had it before. It wasn’t our name in the parcels but our address. At first we thought they were a neighbour ordering incorrectly, but as stuff kept arriving we realised they wouldn’t keep ordering to the wrong address and not get their items. We let Amazon know and they just said they couldn’t do anything and to keep the stuff. It was bizarre things like magnetic eyelashes, phone cases, CBD oil etc.

What are the chances of some random item being useful to some random person though? The world is full of tat already.
Amazon orders are already so personal.

What I actually ordered was some specialist cat food, a spare part for a fridge freezer and a disability aid.

Brings me on to why people steal parcels?! Who would want to nick anything from my examples? 😁

HashtagShitShop · Today 09:55

I've noticed a few things on amazon where, when you look into the reviews, they're clearly not for what is being sold in the listing too so they've used an old listing that they've built up for other cheap stuff they've "sold" and have now changed the product to something more expensive but totally different.

This is not usually one of their own listings they have built up, instead they hijack another seller's listing - I'm a seller on Amazon and this has happened a number of times to me. Amazon do absolutely nothing about it so I, like many sellers, just write that listing off and just sell that item on other platforms.

The cards asking for 5star reviews with incentives is against Amazon policy - this IS something they will act on if they are told.

I received a parcel that I hadn't ordered from Amazon. I just assumed it was a mistake and forgot about it.

A few weeks later I had a notification from the bank to say that the current account was overdrawn. I transferred money from the savings account into it, and assumed that was that. I then got further notifications throughout the day that the current account was again overdrawn. I checked the account and found numerous payments to Amazon for £82. I contacted my husband who confirmed that he hadn't bought anything from them.

I checked my purchases on the Amazon account, and there were purchases for cheap, crappy silicone airtag holder keyrings costing £82. I hadn't bought them, so I contacted Amazon.

Apparently the scammers had cloned my debit card, and were using it to buy from their own listings of cheap goods that they were selling at ludicrous prices. Amazon reimbursed me, and I had to cancel my debit card.

So if you receive any unexpected packages from Amazon, check your bank account!

@Hummusandstuff

Hi, this happened to my oldest DS. There was also an article about it years ago in the media - maybe the BBC?

Anyway, advice we got at the time was absolutely NOT to ignore it - your account is compromised as they have your name and address.

My DS deleted his Amazon account immediately and set up a new one with a new password, (the criminals will probably have the passwords of ‘brushing’ targets is what we were told). The brushing stopped straightaway.

Other advice at the time, (I think it was from Martin Lewis but wouldn’t swear to it), was never to buy things on Amazon from China using your cc or PP details, but always to buy an Amazon gift card and use that to pay instead. I don’t know how this cuts down on the risk of fallen victim to ‘brushing’, etc. but that was what we were told to do.

I believe most of the ‘brushing’ comes via China. Since this happened to my DS, I try to avoid buying from non-UK or non-EU sellers, and if I absolutely have to order from China, I pay via Amazon gift card.

Again, please don’t ignore it - having ‘free stuff’ sounds great, but someone is committing a crime at your expense.

I will see if I can find the old news article.

Hi @Hummusandstuff

I can’t find the original article I read, but here are some others:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54055669.amp

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/one-million-households-in-the-uk-potentially-hit-by-amazon-brushing-scams-aOlvL6a9vXC9

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6193796/brushing-mail-scam-warning

Sorry, but this has to be the most random "wrong thread" post I've ever read on here! 😅😅

We've had random items in a box along with ordered items - a grouting tool is the most recent - I just assumed that they have too many and it's cheaper to post them out for free than pay to dispose.

RIP Fatboy

^ This made me giggle 😂

We had a few months of receiving these - most of them were quite good, including a great pack of dog toys which our boys really enjoyed. I was quite disappointed when they stopped.

Am I the only one who would love random presents through the post?

Amazon reviews are bananas.

I had a review for one of my books saying that it 'doesn't sound like the sort of book I would read'. 1*.
So apparently you can leave reviews for things that you don't like the look of, you don't need to buy them. So why on earth would people need to send out things in the hope of fishing for reviews? Just leave a review saying 'it looks nice and I think I'd love it. 5*'

This happened to me too. Two crappy little ornaments. Plus they were broken! I found it quite creepy to be honest before I realised.

Spot on.

My friend got some useless (to them) socks. She took them to the charity shop 😊

Where do they get your address from, are these sellers that people have bought from before?

This has happened to me but the money has come out of my account! Now worried about my bank card

This has happened to me twice, the parcels are addressed to my house but not the correct name. I've refused them as I've not been expecting anything but it's really irritating, especially as they continue to attempt delivery about 3 or 4 times!

If it is a normal brushing scam, there is no risk to your money. The scammers have simply set up a new account using your address. I would be extra cautious if they have used your name as brushing scam names and addresses are usually random.

The main risk here is if Amazon decide to double down on these accounts. Your address will be linked to a scam and possibly blocked by Amazon. This happened to me when I had a brushing scam with eBay. EBay blocked all accounts with my address and wanted me to prove I was the real deal. It took a lot of effort on my part to resolve.

If they have access to your bank details, this means your account t has been compromised. This is so easily done if you use the same password for several sites. Once hackers have your email and password, they will try any number of sites where holding payment information is the norm and start buying. If you do use sites for your Xmas shopping, always tick/untick the box that allows them to hold onto your data.