A Minnesota woman received a box filled with baby reveal balloons from Amazon. A family in Illinois had dozens of boxes from Temu delivered to their doorstep, including military hats and cameras. And like many others around the U.S. who have gotten a surprise shipment of seemingly random goods, neither had ordered the items.
Consumer protection experts say an unwanted e-commerce order can indicate a so-called brushing scam — a technique some unscrupulous online retailers use to generate fake reviews for their products. The offender is typically a third-party seller on a major e-commerce platform looking to achieve verified merchant status, which enables the seller to write products reviews on someone else’s behalf.
The scams often involve a foreign company obtaining someone’s address that they found online and then delivering products to their home, according to the Better Business Bureau. Josh Planos, a spokesman for …