The Amazon delivery scam is aimed at manipulating the reviews on Amazon.
We all love to get something for free.
Whether it’s a buy one get one free offer at the supermarket, or a free coffee at Costa from collecting stamps from previous orders, there’s something very satisfying about making use of an item you didn’t actually have to pay for.
But if you open your front door to find a new parcel containing luxury goods that you don’t recall ordering, you should be on your guard as the police have issued a warning that you may be being used as part of a scam.
Fake reviews
Surrey Police has posted on Facebook about a ‘brushing’ scam which it believes is taking place.
Here’s how it works. The scammers ‒ apparently based in China ‒ set up a fake Amazon profile in your name.
They then place an order for the items the scammers themselves are selling, and send them to you.
They can then write verified reviews, using the fake account set up in your name, in order to improve the ratings of the seller and their goods.
It sounds bizarre I know, but based on the response to the initial post from Surrey Police a significant number of people have arrived home to discover mystery packages containing mobile phone cases, smart watches, face serum and even a mask and snorkel.
The scam has an even stranger element though.
Because as well as these eccentric items ‒ and indeed on occasions instead of these items you haven’t ordered ‒ the packages also contain something else.
Seeds.
The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) says that if you receive seeds you must not plant them.
Indeed, if you received any seeds and they are still in their unopened packaging, the APHA wants you to send them to the organisation directly so that it can dispose of them on your behalf.
What should I do?
The advice from Surrey Police is to change your password details for your Amazon account, as well as cancel the card you have registered on that account.
You also need to make sure you report these mystery parcels to Amazon for the site to investigate.
And if you have received any seeds, send them off to the APHA at the address below:
Paul Bratby
APHA-PHSI
2nd Floor
Apex Court
City Link
Nottingham
NG2 4LA
The danger of brushing scams
The big danger of being caught up in a brushing scam is that your personal details are compromised in some way.
After all, even if the scammers have set up a fake profile in your name, rather than actually access your real Amazon account, the fact is that they have at least your name and address.
This could be just the start of a battle with identity theft.
But the apparent resurgence of these scams again calls into question how much we can rely on online reviews for products we may want to buy, or the vendors we want to buy them from.
Last year consumer champion Which? warned that Amazon was being hit with a “flood” of fake reviews, which allow unknown brands to dominate the search results, particularly for electronic goods like dashcams and headphones.
The problem has got so bad that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has now launched an investigation into a host of websites to determine what they are doing to combat fake reviews.
This latest brushing scam is yet another reminder that we all need to be on our guard when researching items we might want to buy online.
It’s not enough to simply find a pair of headphones that has a five-star rating on a website ‒ you need to do a little digging to see if the product really justifies its apparent excellent reputation.
With electrical goods for example, does it come from a brand you’ve actually heard of? Have its products been reviewed by specialist tech publications? Or is it simply the recipient of 1,000 suspiciously similarly-worded reviews on Amazon?