(CNN) – Most people who buy things online only have to worry about their deliveries being delayed or never showing up. But some people have a completely different problem: they get weird stuff like hair clips, face creams and sunglasses they never even ordered.
The Federal Trade Commission and cyber experts have warned consumers about these deliveries, which could be part of something known as scams.
This is how this scam works: third-party sellers on Amazon, eBay and other online markets pay people to write fake, positive reviews about their products, or do it themselves. In order to post the reviews, these so-called “brushers” must mislead the website to show that a legitimate transaction has taken place. They will therefore use a fake account to place gift orders and direct them to a random person whose name and address they find online. Instead of sending the item for which they want to post a review, the brushes send a cheap, often lightweight item that costs less to send.
By sending an item (even the wrong one), a tracking number is created and when the package is delivered, brushes can write a verified review. When you are on the receiving end, you are usually not charged for the purchase, and your real account is not hacked, but you are left in the dark who repeatedly sends the mystery packages. In many cases there is no return address. You do not have to worry that something bad has happened to you or will happen to you if you get a package that could possibly be part of a brush fraud, experts say. But we should all be concerned about the scam that affects the reviews we trust when we buy products.
Brush scams started on e-commerce sites in China about five years ago. They surfaced in the news last summer when all 50 states issued warnings about mysterious, unsolicited packets of seeds that people across the country received in the mail.
But it’s not just seeds. Unsuspecting recipients also found boxes of goods ranging from dog-poop scoopers to power cords to soap dispensers on their doorstep.
Jen Blinn of Thousand Oaks, California, told CNN Business that she’s been receiving random packages since June, including a briefcase, a backpack, a pair of hairpins and a coffee warmer.
“Every two weeks … I get another package by email with random things I never ordered,” she said. Blinn notified Amazon of this, but a customer service agent did not really understand what I was saying. “Of course she did not know about it,” she said. The agent looked at Blinn’s account and found nothing wrong with it.
It is not illegal to send unordered merchandise to customers. But the [Federal Trade Commission] has long been behind marketers who use fake reviews, ”said David Vladeck, a former director of the FTC’s Consumer Protection Bureau and a law professor at Georgetown University.
Amazon says its policy prohibits sellers from sending unsolicited merchandise to customers, and that sellers may remove it from the site.
“It is prohibited to send unsolicited packages to customers through third-party sellers and we take action against those who violate our policies, including withholding payments, suspending or removing sales privileges, or cooperating with law enforcement,” Amazon said. spokesman said in an email. Amazon would not say how many brush scams were found on the site or how many sellers were removed due to this scam.
An eBay spokesman said in an email that brush schemes “are not very common” on the site. This violates eBay’s policy of sending unsolicited merchandise to customers or falsifying reviews and may result in eBay restricting or suspending sellers’ accounts from the site.
Experts also believe that it is difficult to quantify the frequency of such scams because it can be difficult for companies to know if reviews are fake, and that consumers often do not cheat.
The fact that you received a package that you did not order is usually harmless to you. The damage inflicts on people who rely on reviews when deciding on a purchase, Chris McCabe, a former Amazon policy enforcement investigator, said to stop fraud and deception. He is now a consultant for sellers on the site.
“The real losers here are the consumers who believe that a lot of these false positive reviews, or this artificial filling of reviews, because they might see 100 positive reviews, and then there might be only 60 or 70 of them that are legal,” he said.
The probability that a consumer will buy a product with five reviews is 270% higher than the probability that they will buy a product with zero reviews, according to a 2017 report from the Spiegel Research Center of the North-West University.
Some fake reviews are also driven by Facebook groups where sellers offer money to buyers when they write positive product reviews, McCabe said. Amazon and Facebook need to work together to cage these groups, he said.
An Amazon spokesman said the company analyzes more than 10 million reviews each week to prevent false publications from being published and that it provides details of its investigation to social media companies so they can stop these bad actors from using their platforms. abuse. “
A Facebook spokesman said in an email that when the company is notified of groups that may encourage false reviews, it will be reviewed and removed if it violates its policies.
Unwanted sheets and Shiatsu massages
For consumers, the unexpected deliveries can be shocking. The packages Ashanté Nicole never ordered arrived at her home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2019.
iPhone and portable car chargers. An iPad case. A heated shiatsu massage. A nail cleaning brush and a dryer. Sheets. A mattress cover. A soft toy.
They did not have return addresses, so Nicole was not sure who was sending the packages. She reaches out to Amazon to stop them from coming, but they still keep arriving at her front porch.
“It was a little worrying because I do not know who has my information,” she said. “I do not know what they are going to send me. Like they can send something illegal and then I’m in trouble because I do not know who that person is or what they are sending me. ”
If you get merchandise that you did not order, it could mean that scammers created an account in your name or took over your account, an FTC spokesman said in an email. Scammers may even have created new accounts in other names linked to your address, enabling them to post very seemingly correct reviews.
‘We recommend keeping an eye on your online shopping accounts. “If you spot activities that do not belong to you, you should immediately report them to the site and think about changing your password for the site,” the spokesman said.
Nicole feels that she has done everything in her power by notifying Amazon every time unsolicited packages from the retailer arrive at her front porch.
“There’s literally nothing I can do except for Amazon every time it happens. And it didn’t really do much, “she said.
Amazon did not want to comment directly on Nicole and Blinn’s accounts, but said that if a customer receives an unsolicited package, they should contact Amazon’s customer service team.
Nicole said she hopes Amazon will do more to stop brushing sellers involved in the scams.
“I think they should be a little more concerned about closing the stores and making sure the sellers can’t use the platform.”
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