Nice surprise? Don’t fall for delivery scams

Online shopping boomed during the pandemic – but there has also been a rise in associated scams.

According to Which?, reports of ‘smishing’ (SMS phishing) increased by 700% in the first six months of 2021, compared to the previous six months, and now the watchdog is warning of a new scam called ‘brushing’, which involves sending mystery Amazon orders, with fraudsters hoping to boost the ratings of third party sellers.

Householders have reported receiving items such as magnetic eyelashes, eyelash serum, toys for pets and children, Bluetooth accessories, an iphone case, a Frisbee, medical gloves and other items that are cheap to ship in large volumes.

The watchdog believes thirdparty sellers are exploiting Amazon’s highly competitive search ranking system for products – which favours items with high sales volumes and good reviews – by sending items to unsuspecting people and then falsely logging it as a genuine purchase.

A survey of almost 2,000 people by the watchdog found that 4% of respondents – or, scaled up nationally, an estimated 1.1 million people – said they or someone in their household had received such a package.

Of the respondents who received a mystery parcel, 63% said they kept them, 28% threw them away and 16% gave them away.

Amazon said ‘brushing’ is “affecting all online marketplaces” and is “orchestrated by bad actors who procure names and addresses from various external sources”.

“We estimate that less than 0.001% of Amazon orders are impacted by brushing as Amazon has robust processes in place to prevent abuse from impacting our reviews, search rankings and other customer experiences,” added the company.