100s packages delivered to my house! Please help me!

[LolaLouise]

Every day this week ive had 10-30 packages delivered. They are the small a6 plastic bag packages. Each one is addressed to a different person with addresses up and down the country but they will only have a name, street name and town. No house number or postcode. Each package has a royal mail sticker saying “incomplete address”. The return address is a company name that does not exist from my attempts to find it. The first line and town on the return address is for my home. Every package then has a different return post code, however the first part is always correct for my address. The packages say “paid and printed” from TikTok. They contain 2 of the foam peanut packaging things. And thats it. I opened a couple as they felt empty. Nothing else within them.

Its do weird and random, its making me feel uneasy and quite anxious. I have no idea how to make it stop.

Any ideas?

no aibu, posting here for traffic and hopefully a solution

Its a scam, probs the one shown by @WaneyEdge

No advice to offer, but having read the thread out of sheer curiosity, does anyone else find their mind boggling at the things that go on in the modern world thanks to "technology" that cause so much aggravation and stress to people just trying to live their lives? It's no wonder that legitimate businesses and services like the postal system start to fall apart due to the amount of scammy stuff they have to deal with, it must run into thousands leaving little scope to deal with routine and expected glitches etc.

Honestly, I spend my life wanting to get off this mad world.

Commiserations OP, it's another bit of bollocks to deal with that you just don't need.

Sorry, grumpy old woman rant over, I need more tea.

@soupyspoon , listen to the link at the top of page 2 (BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, Subscription Traps, Online Shopping Scam and Charity Shops)
or BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, Five Ways They Get You, Love

In this case, Royal Mail are 'returning to sender' - for some reason the OPs address is printed on the label as the return address. So the tracking submitted by the scammer to PayPal (which if the parcel has originated from China won't be Royal Mail tracking, it will be ChinaPost tracking) will show a tick for delivered (to the OP!) and the name and (partial) address details of the customer. Sufficient 'evidence' to convince a PayPal bot that the customer received their parcel.

@soupyspoon , sorry that 2nd link was to dating scams, but the same journalist covers several types of scams.

Money Box on Radio 4 reports on scams too. They're fairly easy to listen to, and informative.

It actually wasn’t stated in the opening post that it was Royal Mail so was unclear whether it could be a private delivery company or even person, hence my message.

Theres no need to call my idea ridiculous (unless you just enjoy belittling people). The whole point of these posts is to pool ideas and try and help the OP build to a solution surely?

We had this at work. The postie said its a scam that happens a lot. He said that he wouldn't deliver any future ones and take them back saying we refused delivery. It seems to have stopped.

I listen to another BBC programme about fraud. They were saying that one way they got your address is that you buy something crappy on TikTok, you get the crappy thing and complain it’s crap, they give you your money back, you are happy. But what they get is that they have an address that they know is live and has a real person in it.

Do not "have a go" at the postman! He/she is only doing their job. Speak to the sorting office manager and explain the situation. They will help with any investigation. Maybe the police or HM customs might be interested in supposedly empty boxes being delivered? Does sound like a scam of some sort.

We had this happen with Amazon. We purchased an LED ceiling light and ended up sending it back. We then became the return address for Amazon and received dozens and dozens of similar lights.

I did a bit of online research and it's apparently quite common. Some people think it's actually a deliberate method of avoiding processing e-waste and returns.

I spoke with Amazon and it stopped.

There was something about this - a kind of scam - on Radio 4 last week. Probably You and Yours. It would be worth checking it out on BBC Sounds.

It sounds like a Chinese fake store to me. Contact Royal Mail asap.

How are they coming to you if they don’t have your address on them? You’ve said they have your street name and town but they don’t have your name and postcode, so they must have your house number as well then? Or is the post man just dumping them all through your letter box?

Sounds like a scam and I couldn’t be arsed to try and track down the company, it might not even be real. Just contact Royal Mail and explain the situation and leave it up to them.

ordered delivered by Amazon? heard of this before contact Amazon and they will stop it is some sort of scam to increase rating/ delivery numbers

The Radio 4 programme to listen to is Scam Secrets BBC Radio 4 - Scam Secrets, The Police Are On The Phone. The presenter is Shari Vahl, who is a reporter on You & Yours.

@WonderfulSmith , what programme was it?

This is a warning of a current similar scam. ARVELLA shoes advertising a 10 year anniversary with great reductions on shoes. However Companies House show the company dissolved October 2024.

I ordered a pair shoes and realised the scam when no receipt of order or payment.

Six weeks later a pair of cheap plastic shoes in the same style as advertised delivered by Avri in black cheap packaging and no paperwork so cannot be returned as they were not going to refund the money. QE code revealed an international warehouse at Heathrow which AI said sells kitchen items.

This is another brushing scam using publicly available information to create fake orders for their own products and send a cheap copy to get the tracking number and a delivered status as verified and satisfied buyer.

Hmmm...delivery scam..people have purchased and paid for an item..with the incorrect address on the item it is redirected back to sender. Item is then processed as "delivered". When purchasers query not receiving their items, tracking confirms it was delivered.

I came here to reply this, it sounds exactly like a scam company has set the OP up for returns to their company