Woman Warned of Scam After Opening 41 Amazon Packages She Didn't Order; What You Need to Know to Protect Yourself

It's exciting to have a package show up when you weren't expecting anything, but for one woman, the joy turned into a strange situation when 41 boxes were delivered unannounced at her home. Over the course of three days, Amazon packages kept arriving and the TikToker took to the platform to share the bizarre story. User @abbeyshock documented the drama unfolding and revealed what happened next. 

In the first TikTok explaining the situation, Abbey said it wasn't a big deal at first. "We've had 41 Amazon packages that we did not order and are addressed to someone we don't know show up at our house over the last three days."

Abbey was home when packages were delivered on the first day and she was able to return some of them. "On the first day we got 10, but I was able to return three straight to the mailman when I saw him dropping off the second load."

The following day more packages arrived, but Abbey said it was still "manageable." She said, "The next day we got a bunch more, but I thought, 'Okay, this is still manageable.' While this situation wasn't out of control yet, she knew something wasn't right and looked into who to contact at Amazon. 

On the third day, so many more boxes were delivered and Abbey said it was getting "out of hand." She said, "Today we opened our door and found all of these," and showed a pile of packages in the living room. "It's getting out of hand."

Fed up with the situation, Abbey tried to reach out to Amazon, but didn't have much luck at first. "I think it's mail fraud if I keep them, and I've been hung up on twice while on the phone with Amazon."

After a couple failed attempts, Abbey finally got through to Amazon and was told she could keep the packages. In a follow up video she unboxed all the items, which were mostly headbands–a lot of them, clothing, purses and makeup cases. 

Hundreds of comments poured in warning Abbey this could be a way for Amazon sellers to boost their sales. "If it's all from the same seller, it might be the thing where they're boosting their sales by sending stuff out," one person commented. "I think I read somewhere that they do this in order to write 'verified transactions' reviews as well," another added. Someone else wrote, "I own an etsy shop, in some etsy groups and even there people talk about doing something like this". Another warned," I had this happen, I started looking into all my credit cards, there was $2000 in fraud charges on one card." 

A brushing scam happens when someone like Abbey receives a package from a seller or business containing various products they didn't order, and commenters suggested this is what happened. "Google brushing scheme," one person wrote. "While it may appear to be a victimless crime—you did after all get some free stuff—the reality is that your personal information may be compromised," The United States Postal Inspection Service explained. 

"A person receives packages or parcels containing various sorts of items which were not ordered or requested by the recipient. The intention is to give the impression that the recipient is a verified buyer who has written positive online reviews of the merchandise, meaning: they write a fake review in your name." The purpose of this is to make it look like a seller has great reviews. "These fake reviews help to fraudulently boost or inflate the products' ratings and sales numbers, which they hope results in an increase of actual sales in the long run," the article says.

USPS suggests several ways to help protect yourself from brushing scams including not paying for the merchandise, return to sender, change your password on accounts, monitor your credit cards closely and notify authorities and the retailer. "If unsolicited merchandise arrives from Amazon, eBay, or another third-party seller, go to that company's website and file a fraud report. Ask the company to remove any fake reviews under your name."