According to which?
The consumer organization said “shady” retailers were sending out “Suzhichou” brand scarves to boost sales and create fake reviews on the site.
The “sales” then help their products rank higher in search results.
Amazon said that “brushing” affects all online marketplaces and “robust processes” are in place to deal with the problem.
Which? said while worrying that there is no need to panic and customers should report the unwanted package to Amazon.
The consumer group said after an unscrupulous seller placed a fake order, they would ship a cheap, inferior product – like one of these scarves – to any address.
- The “brush” scam behind mysterious packages
The order generates a tracking number on the marketplace and once the recipient receives the item, the scammer can leave a fake five-star review, which in turn boosts the numbers.
This leads to more people seeing and buying poor quality products under the false impression that they are highly rated. Which? called.
The consumer group said scammers get names and addresses from “one of several places”.
It is said that some buyers have reported receiving the scarves after ordering another item from a Facebook marketplace in China.
Details may also have been obtained from a publicly available source, compromised through a data leak, or accessed via an insecure website. Which? called.
It added that people who have been targeted should report the package and change their password.
In a statement, Amazon said: “We are relentless in our efforts to detect abuse and prevent it from impacting the customer experience.
“Sellers are prohibited from sending unsolicited packages to customers, and we will continue to improve the maturity of abuse prevention in our store and take appropriate action, such as suspending or removing selling privileges.”
2021 Which? reported that more than a million UK households may have been victims of ‘brushing’.
It surveyed 1,839 people and found that 4% of respondents said they or someone in their household had received a mysterious Amazon package that they didn’t order, that wasn’t sent by someone they knew and wasn’t for a neighbor was adopted.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority is currently investigating Google and Amazon over fake and misleading reviews.
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