Free Stuff From Amazon? Don’t think it’s brushing

In My Humble Opinion
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I got a package from Amazon that I didn’t order. The first thing that came to mind was “brushing scam”. So I did a little reading up on brushing scams.

I don’t think that’s what this is. A few weeks ago I ordered a handheld vacuum from Amazon. I found one being sold directly by Amazon through Amazon Warehouse. It was listed as [used - like new - Item will come in original packaging, packaging will be damaged. ] It was about half the price of the new one. I have bought returned products from Amazon before and they can be a good deal, and this one had an especially deep discount.

Yesterday, my brother told me my packages had arrived. There were two boxes from Amazon. One contained the vacuum cleaner. The other one contained 2 dumbbell workout posters, packaged together. It did not take me long to ascertain that this was an “Amazon’s Choice” product that sold for $10.75. I was also sure that I had never ordered or even viewed this product, nor have I ever bought anything similar. The product was new and unopened and the inner packaging intact. The cardboard box it was in looked kind of battered. My name and address was correct.

I checked my Amazon account carefully, and there is no record of the posters being ordered or shipped, only the vacuum cleaner.

No one saw the packages arrive but the label indicates they came via UPS.

The return address on both packages was the same. The sender name on the shipping label was Warehouse Deals Signature Free Export Countries and the address is that of the Amazon return center in Lexington KY. The two packages were not shown as being part of the same order ( they both said 1 of 1 ) - but they did have consecutive tracking numbers.

Now each box had two labels. One was the typical large UPS label that I’m used to seeing. The other was some sort of smaller routing label that reads as follows

My address (not name, though)

P:South S: IN I:S

HELY-6594

Package tracking number

A bunch of really fine print that’s mostly letter and number codes but includes a date and time. The only reason I mention it is because of the number 6594, which was handwritten in magic marker on both packages.

I don’t think this was some weird brushing scam. Now, I don’t really “get” brushing scams - the idea that someone might give me free stuff just so they can post a verified review that I don’t even have to write myself doesn’t keep me up at night.

Now I’m more concerned about the “sending contraband to my address in the hopes that they can steal the package off my porch” that is usually lumped in with brushing scams - although the upside might be free contraband if the criminals aren’t too aggressive.

But that’s not what happened here and I don’t think this was the review scam either. I check my reviews regularly and I haven’t seen any show up that I didn’t write.

It genuinely appears as if this item was sent to me unsolicited by someone at the fulfillment center -almost as if someone said “Hey, we’ve been tripping over this rectangular box for a while now, let’s slap a label on it and send it to that lady that ordered the vacuum cleaner.” Which doesn’t make sense.

But Amazon warehouse employees being in on some scam to garner 5 star reviews for $10 workout posters doesn’t make sense either. And I don’t understand how a company like Amazon can even get a box out the door without a valid order in the system. I’ve worked for companies that do a lot of shipping and we could never even generate a shipping label without a valid customer account and purchase order, even if it was a zero price order.

I’m mostly just curious but does anyone have any insights? Most search results for “Amazon sent me something I didn’t order” lead to articles on brushing scams. I found one article that mentioned that Amazon sometimes just sends people stuff they didn’t order, but I couldn’t find any details or references. I want to know.

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My bona fides: 20+ years in logistics/warehousing/shipping, mostly on the IT side of things. (Also a shamefully prolific Amazon customer.)

First things first: When you checked your Amazon orders, did you check the “Archived” ones? Those don’t turn up on the main page, you have to actually dig into the “Archived” page to see them; that’s a tactic identity-theft scammers will use to hide stuff they bought with your account from you. Pretty sure that’s not what’s happening here, but better safe than sorry; could be a low-dollar-value test run, I suppose.

Next things now: I’m 98% certain what happened is that some minimum-wage Amazon worker screwed up and shipped you posters that somebody else ordered; this was likely the order that either immediately preceded or immediately followed your order in somebody’s workflow.

While it’s true that a valid order is needed to generate a shipping label, there’s always a means to reprint any labels generated, because sh!t happens to printers all the time: labels jam up, labels run out, toner runs out, thermal ribbons run out/break/tangle, whatever.

I’m guessing that something happened when the run of labels including your vacuum was being printed, and somebody reprinted your label instead of the one for whoever ordered the posters. Then they slapped it on the box with the posters, thinking that they’d just reprinted the correct label for the poster order.

All those UPS stickers and notations are just UPS’s internal sorting process at work. You’ll probably also see a color (“Red,” “Yellow,” “Orange”) and a notation of “Left” or “Right” on each package. That’s for the benefit of the sortation workers at the distribution center and the delivery driver. Nothing to worry about.

TL;DR: Somebody somewhere isn’t getting their posters, but Amazon won’t find it worth their trouble for you to send them back, they’ll just ship new ones. Give the posters to someone who can use them, I guess?

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P.S. – Upon further consideration, it’s really not my place to say that Amazon wouldn’t want those posters returned, although that’s my guess. Maybe contact Customer Service and tell them you received posters that you didn’t order and ask if they’d like to pay the shipping for you to return them?

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THANK YOU!

Yes, I checked and the order isn’t archived, apparently I have no archived orders. But your answer is exactly what I was hoping for - someone that understood the process that could tell me what went wrong.
I’m so used to everyone thinking that everything is a scam and it was tempting to just say “brushing scam” and forget it. But it never felt like a scam - just a mistake, that’s why I dug into the details.

Although, like I said, I don’t lose any sleep over brushing scams - like I said, if someone wants to send me free stuff so THEY can review it and I don’t even have to do the work…bring it on! I like getting mystery packages, even stuff that seems odd to me -like workout posters. My life has been boring lately.
Until last week I didn’t even know workout posters were a thing, go figure. I’m sure my nephew knows someone that can use one

This happened to me once before a few years ago. The freebie was one of those shoe stretcher things. I got this one during the holidays. I thought it was a gift as I had been complaining to a friend about the fit of a pair of new shoes. By the time I found out she didn’t send it a lot of time had passed and I just let it go.

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I was going to guess the same thing, although I have much less insight into Amazon’s shipping practices.

I once got 2 foam rollers when I ordered one. There was no easy obvious way to contact Amazon to tell them, so I waited to see if they contacted me. After two weeks, I gave the second foam roller to a friend.

Unlike you, my first assumption is “mistake” and I confess it didn’t even occur to me that it might be a scam. And I would have been happy to return the extra, but I bet shipping would have cost nearly as much as the item. And it was their error, I wasn’t about to do a lot of work trying to figure out how to reach them.

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When this happens, you’re not the target of the scam. The target of the scam is whoever reads the fake reviews. So don’t worry about the scam when you receive free stuff, worry about the scam when you read Amazon reviews.