Got a package you didn't order? It could be a scam

[634-5789]

This caught my attention. I received one (1) Glade air freshener from Amazon. Yeah. WEIRD!

Here's how these scams work: Third-party sellers on Amazon, eBay and other online marketplaces pay people to write fake, positive reviews about their products, or do it themselves. To be able to post the reviews, these so-called "brushers" need to trick the site into making it appear that a legitimate transaction took place. So they'll use a fake account to place gift orders and address them to a random person whose name and address they find online. Then, instead of actually mailing the item for which they want to post a review, the brushers will send a cheap, often lightweight item that costs less to ship.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/23/business/package-didnt-order-brushing/index.html

[rso]

1. Scam

Yep, happened to me with Amazon. I received a 20 cent hair clip which I never ordered, and was charged $ 67.00. I disputed the charge with my credit card company, and it took a couple of months to resolve the issue.

[634-5789]

2. WOW.

[CincyDem]

3. I'll beat that.

We got a small kitchen scale and a book from Amazon. Couldn’t figure out who ordered it. Looked up the scale and it was 8 bucks or something.

But the book was total gibberish. Cut out paragraphs from who know where. Paperback...about 70 pages. Written by some Yale professor.

So I look the guy up and he’s real. But the book makes no sense. So I look up the book and that little shit was on amazon for 349.00 bucks. It was some self publishing thing where amazon takes 20% of the hit and sends the rest to the self publisher.

Cancelled it on our card immediately and started chasing it with amazon. Turns out it was ordered using some ancient amazon login we hadn’t seen in years. Ended up talking to some regional amazon security manager. Good guy. He explained the scam.

It’s essentially laundering the credit card purchase through amazon so the bank doesn’t flag it as fraudulent. The guy said there are enough amazon customers that buy enough stuff that they just miss the charge on their cc bill...it’s just another amazon charge.

Crazy. He said they were fighting it but it was a real moving target because the scam is lucrative for the scammers and it’s hard to push back because it’s between the cc company and amazon.

Anyway...I got a weird book out of for free, and even that was too expensive for what it is. Lol.

[bamagal62]

4. I got a long crinoline skirt,

A passport holder, a sweatshirt, and a weird manual mathematical calculation thingy. All very cheap. But, never a charge on my credit card as I checked. Amazon said that I had 2 accounts with my name. But, different Billing address. That’s all they could tell me. I guess if I looked up those items I might see my fake review! I keep an eye on my accounts and immediately changed my password.