Meghan Atkinson’s experience with a scam known as brushing started last summer with a dog pool.
Though she had not ordered the item, it was delivered to her home by Amazon. Atkinson doesn’t even have a dog.
Atkinson scoured her order history and credit card statements thinking maybe she accidentally added it to her cart. But there was no trace of the product. Then the packages kept coming.
“We got a smartwatch, which looks like an Apple Watch,” she told Day 6. “I’ve had phone cords for Apple products, but I don’t have any Apple products.”
“I’ve had vacuum bags, but it doesn’t say what vacuum they would work with, so they’re just still sitting around.”
According to experts and the consumer advocacy organization, receiving unsolicited packages may be part of so-called brushing scams. Companies, often operating overseas, purchase items and have them shipped to random recipients so the seller can then write a favourable review on their own product.
The shipments typically include light-weight, low-cost items. The aim is to boost a sellers’ product rating on ecommerce shops like Amazon.
“If you’re like most consumers who use Amazon, one of the very first things you do … is you look for the product that has the most positive reviews,” said Brian Kilcourse, co-founder of Retail Systems Research in San Francisco.
“This is one of the…
