Received an Amazon package you didn’t order?

[GalacticKegger]

Third-party sellers on Amazon and other e-commerce sites are sending random products to people across the US as part of what’s known as a “brushing scam” – a bizarre scheme that helps boost a vendors’ ratings online. Here’s how it works.

 

[huntgod]

I remember reading about this maybe a year or so ago, not surprised it ballooned during the pandemic.

I wish someone would send me free stuff, even junk...

I will say that I typically look at 2-3 star reviews to get an idea about the product and wish they weren't able to delete or hide the body text of those reviews.

1 star reviews are typically someone pissed off at the company and though sometime helpful most often are just rants.

2-3 star reviews can be very helpful as they are often folks who bought the product and actually used it and felt it had issues worth noting and likely care enough to impart that information, but unlike a 1 star aren't just pissed off at the company.

4-5 star reviews don't typically need to read because the person clearly liked the product a lot. It is problematic if they are artificially inflating that number and if you read the reviews it's usually pretty clear which are legit and which are shills for the company.

 

[Camel]

neat

 

[Death_Rictus]

It seems that if Amazon really wanted to stop this practice all they'd have to do is prevent gifts from giving a verified purchase result but since Amazon gets to skim a bit of profit out of it they likely don't really care.