alt Hacker NewsI keep getting packages in the mail that are addressed to me, but not things I ordered. Lawnmower parts, plumbing hardware, a grill cover, a magnetron (!), etc.
One had an amazon slip in it, but most of them have come through ebay. I reported the one to amazon and the rest to ebay (I gave them the USPS tracking numbers since I didn't know the order numbers), and also contacted a couple of the sellers who were businesses with public contact info. The sellers I reached both said they would send me return labels, but neither has yet.
I feel like this has to be a scam, but I'm not sure exactly what the scam is. Maybe someone's writing fake reviews, but making real orders to match?
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That does sound like brushing, https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/brushing-scam, which is effectively what you describe: >Maybe someone's writing fake reviews, but making real orders to match
I hadn’t heard of brushing, but you might also be a bystander for a different common eBay scam. Seller sells to Buyer, but ships something different to another address with the same zip code. I think eBay may have since fixed part of this, but the deal was that all the tracking info would show that the seller shipped and delivered something of the right approximate weight to the buyer (because USPS would only share/confirm info accurate to zip code level).
The thing that makes it less likely is that the buyer and seller had multiple transactions together which is uncommon for eBay. And also if the stuff you got was expensive. Maybe buyer really just put the wrong address and neither side can do much to get the item back once delivered?
>I feel like this has to be a scam, but I'm not sure exactly what the scam is
This is called a brushing scam.
On ebay people will create fake purchases in order to get a 100% rating and then scam people since people are being far more judicial about who they're buying from.
Just a recent example I had.
I was looking for a new camera. Finally settled in on a Fuji X-T3. The prices on legit camera places like B&H, Andorama and MPB were running around $800 for an excellent condition body. It went down from there in price. Found a body on ebay for $790. Right price, albeit a bit less and for a silver body. There has been an increase in demand for the silver body since Fuji announced they will no longer make them. Most silver bodies have been pushed up over $800 for even a decent condition body.
After kind of going back and forth over whether I wanted to make the purchase, the seller messaged me with an offer of $750. I was leaning on purchasing, but just as an experiment, I sent Claude the link to the auction and asked if it saw any red flags.
Claude pointed out it was a fairly new account within the last few months. Yes, it had 100% seller rating, but they only had six sales with zero user feedback. They also were not accepting returns. For a $700+ purchase, this was too many red flags and I ended up getting something off of MPB instead.
I believe this is the scam. Set up two accounts. Sell one account to another account with a fake user and address. In this case, your address. Ship useless stuff to fake account, boost your rating in order to ease people's anxiety over ordering from someone with less than 100% seller rating. If the person getting the useless junk emails you, say you'll send a return label, then never do it.