(CNN) – Most people who buy things online just have to worry about the delay or the arrival of their deliveries. But some people are dealing with a completely different problem: getting weird things like hair clippers, face creams and sunglasses that they never asked for.
The Federal Trade Commission and cyber experts have alerted consumers to these deliveries, which may be part of something known as “brushing” scams.
See how these scams work: third-party sellers on Amazon, eBay and other online markets pay people to write positive and false comments about their products, or to make them themselves. In order to post the reviews, these so-called “brushers” need to trick the site to make it look like a legitimate transaction has occurred. They will then use a fake account to place orders for gifts and address them to a random person whose name and address they find online. So, instead of actually mailing the item you want to post a review on, the surveyors will send you a cheap item, usually light, that costs less to send.
Sending an item (even the wrong one) creates a tracking number and, when the package is delivered, allows researchers to write a verified review. If you are receiving it, you are generally not charged for the purchase and your real account is not hacked – but you do not know who is sending the mysterious packages over and over. In many cases, there is no return address. You don’t have to worry if something bad has happened to you or it will happen to you if you receive a package that may be part of a brushing scheme, experts say. But we all need to be concerned about the scams that affect the reviews we rely on when buying products.
Brushing scams reportedly took off on e-commerce sites in China about five years ago. They resurfaced in the headlines last summer, when all 50 states issued warnings about mysterious and unsolicited seed packages that people across the country received in the mail.
But they are not just seeds. Unsuspecting recipients also found boxes with products ranging from dog poop-scoopers to power cords and soap dispensers on their doors.
Jen Blinn, of Thousand Oaks, Calif., Told CNN Business that she has been receiving random packages since June, most recently including a briefcase, a backpack, a hair straightener and a coffee cup warmer.
“Every two weeks … I get another package in the mail of random things I never ordered,” she said. Blinn notified Amazon of the problem, but a customer service agent “didn’t quite understand what I was saying. She obviously didn’t know about it, ”she said. The agent looked at Blinn’s account and found nothing wrong with it.
It is not illegal to send unsolicited goods to customers. But the [Federal Trade Commission] it has long been behind marketers who use false reviews, ”said David Vladeck, former director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection and professor of law at Georgetown University.
Amazon says its policy prohibits sellers from sending unsolicited goods to customers and that sellers can be removed from the site for this.
“Third-party sellers are prohibited from sending unsolicited packages to customers and we take action against those who violate our policies, including withholding payments, suspending or removing privileges from selling or working with law enforcement,” said a spokesperson for Amazon by email. Amazon did not say how many brush strokes were found on the site or how many sellers were removed due to those strokes.
An eBay spokesman said in an email that brushing schemes “do not appear to be highly prevalent” on the website. This violates eBay’s policy of sending unsolicited goods to customers or falsifying reviews and may result in eBay sellers being restricted from sellers’ accounts or being suspended from the site.
Experts also say it is difficult to quantify the frequency of such scams because it can be difficult for companies to know if the comments are false and the scams are often not reported by consumers.
The fact that you received a package you didn’t order is usually harmless to you. The damage is to people who rely on analysis when deciding on a purchase, said Chris McCabe, a former Amazon policy enforcement investigator tasked with preventing scams and fraud. He is now a consultant to sellers of the site.
“The real losers here are the consumers who are possibly believing in many of these false positive reviews, or in this artificial filling of reviews, because they can see 100 positive reviews, and then there may be only 60 or 70 of them legitimate,” he said.
The likelihood of a consumer buying a product with five reviews is 270% greater than the likelihood of buying a product with no reviews, according to a 2017 report by Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center.
Some fake reviews are also being conducted by Facebook groups, where sellers offer buyers money if they write positive product reviews, McCabe said. Amazon and Facebook must work together to crack down on these groups, he said.
An Amazon spokesman said the company reviews more than 10 million reviews every week to try to prevent false ones from being published and that it provides details of its investigations to social media companies “so that they can prevent these wrongdoers from abusing their platforms ”.
A Facebook spokesman said in an email that when the company is told of groups that may encourage false assessments, it reviews and removes them if they violate its policies.
Unwanted sheets and Shiatsu massagers
For consumers, unexpected deliveries can be shocking. The packages Ashanté Nicole never ordered started arriving at her home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2019.
iPhone and portable car chargers. An iPad case. A heated shiatsu massage. A brush to clean nails and a hairdryer. Sheets. A mattress cover. A flexible fish toy.
They had no return addresses, so Nicole wasn’t sure who was sending the packages. She reached out to Amazon to try to stop them from coming, but they still keep arriving at her door.
“It was a little worrying because I don’t know who has my information,” she said. “I don’t know what they are going to send me. As if they could send something illegal and I was in trouble because I didn’t know who that person was or what they were sending me. “
If you receive merchandise you didn’t order, it could mean that scammers have created an account in your name or taken control of your account, an FTC spokesman said in an email. Scammers may even have created new accounts with other names linked to your address, allowing them to post many seemingly real reviews.
“We recommend keeping an eye on your online shopping accounts. If you detect any activity that is not yours, report it immediately to the site and consider changing the password for that site, ”said the spokesman.
Nicole feels she has done everything she can to alert Amazon every time the retailer’s unsolicited packages arrive at her door.
“There is literally nothing I can do but tell Amazon whenever it happens. And that didn’t help much, ”she said.
Amazon declined 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 and ban salespeople who participate in the scams.
“I just think they need to worry a little more about closing these stores and making sure that the salespeople can’t use the platform.”
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