During the summer holidays everything slows down and engulfsand the work of couriers is not exempt from this bad habit.
The writer lives in a peripheral area of a town in Sardinia, in whose streets it is not very easy to extricate oneself. In these weeks, when the couriers who usually deliver parcels are on vacation, their replacements are running into several errors: delayed or crossed deliveries (the package for A delivered to B and vice versa). Not to mention the single mistakes: goods given directly into the hands of the wrong person. From there on, it’s just a matter of hoping for the bona fides of the wrong recipient.
They are still trifles, compared to what happened a a Virginia woman, who had more than 100 Amazon packages delivered that she had never requested.
What exactly happened, and why? And above all, why Could this happen to any of us?
The 100 (and more) Amazon packages delivered by mistake
Maybe in someone’s perverse dreams there is receiving, without spending a euroa product that was never requested but which is useful.
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However, what happened to Cindy Smith is excessive. The lady, who lives in Prince William County, Virginia, heard the doorbell ring. And when she opened it, she found a big surprise in front of her eyes. A surprise composed of several Amazon parcelswith the unmistakable writing and respective logo.
The event was repeated for several days, until Mrs. Smith has collected more than 100 parcels sent by Amazon in the garden.
The address? It was correct
Like any person of common sense, and referring to the possible misunderstandings we mentioned at the beginning of the article, Cindy Smith immediately thought it was a mistake by the courier.
Nevertheless, checking the labels on all the packages, there was no doubt: the address was his. And the sender responded to a Chinese name, such as Lixiao Zhang, which Prince William’s lady had never heard of before.
We know, one element is missing: the contents of Amazon packages. Spy story buffs will be disappointed, because the products had nothing to do with international conspiracies or who knows what other crimes. The boxes contained much more prosaically a thousand headlamps to play sports safely in low light situations. And then hundreds of glue guns and various children’s binoculars.
But what happened? An oversight? Or a trick? And for what purpose?
It’s not a brush scam
The curious adventure involving Cindy Smith has nothing to do with what has been called a brushing scam.
That is the practice of open dummy accounts to deliver items of very low value. Once delivery has been certified, the bad guys can review the product on Amazon, obviously giving the maximum rating.
Amazon itself, in an ad hoc page, warns its customers against this practice, inviting them to contact the platform if an unsolicited package is delivered, by filling in a specific form.
But, we said, this is not a brush scam.
The real reason? Clear the storage center
Ms. Smith, rightly so, contacted Amazon customer service.
Which, after some research, traced the cause of the problem, or rather of the crafty action. The elusive Lixiao Zhang, by sending the goods to a random address, freed up his company’s storage center.
It is evidently cheaper to do so than keep unsold products in the warehouse which risks being clogged with goods.
An inhumane economy
While Ms. Cindy Smith has been giving away parcels all over her neighborhood, Amazon closed the sender account. And a spokesperson said: “Our company has systems in place to detect suspicious behavior by vendors and teams to investigate and stop prohibited activity.
The account of the seller involved in this abusive activity has been terminated. There is no room for fraud at Amazon and we will continue to pursue all measures to protect our store and hold the bad actors accountable“.
But the fact remains that the gesture of the company (which is evidently not the only one to act like this) is a dangerous sign of an economy based only on the spasmodic search for money.
Not caring, to take just one example, gods environmental damage caused by the dispatch of hundreds of products, all with relative packaging, which set in motion a chain of people assigned to the various stages of preparation, shipment and delivery.