Probably was a drop ship. Many/most volume Amazon sellers don’t have physical possession of the goods they sell, they drop ship. Or it could have been an order fulfilled by Amazon from one of their warehouses.
I don’t understand why I wouldn’t open an unexpected package from an unknown sender. I am no one of importance, and no one wants to kill me or do me harm, so far as I am aware, so what possible reason would I have not to open anything that is addressed to me?
You could have filed a chargeback with your credit card, since the item ordered was substantially not as described. Actually given what you said, Paypal should NOT have sided with the seller - since the seller did not send what they promised, and the fact that the side disappeared is strong evidence of fraud.
A few months ago I decided I wanted to get a barrel composter. The one I wanted tended to sell for a bit under a hundred bucks (manufacturer’s list price was about 120) - but the few legitimate online retailers that had it were charging a bit above that. I was going to order it from Home Depot or some such and they literally sold the last one (online) during the few minutes I was dithering.
So I googled. And found a site selling it for just under 60 dollars. Woohoo, right? Except the website sold an odd assortment of other things like sunglasses. That composter just did not fit their other merchandise.
Some more googling turned up another identical website with the identical picture, listing and price. A little more searching, and both were just 2-3 months old and already had TONS of complaints (think: ordering 200 dollar sunglasses and getting flip-flops).
I never actually attempted to place an order - it just looked too strange even before I sought it out. My husband, unfortunately, fell for a scam site that was selling N95 masks. I wound up doing a chargeback (and that site’s owner was actually arrested for fraud not long after that).
If they are dropshipping, the folks handling the logistics don’t know there is a scam at play; fewer people knowing the truth means the scam runs longer without detection.
Yes, I did, though I hadn’t heard of it before seeing it up thread (haven’t been in the other thread). I suppose it could be that, though as this doesn’t seem to be coming from a single vendor nor is the vendor even listed I dismissed it earlier. The article I read on brushing seems to be about attempting to increase the visibility of online products or vendors by sending out unsolicited items, and this doesn’t seem to check all the boxes here, though maybe I’m missing something.
PayPal is linked directly to a bank account, so there was no chargeback available. Odd thing about Paypal’s stance was that there is no way to appeal the decision. They said that I received something (which is true) and that’s the end of it. At the time I filed the claim with them, the site still existed and I had corresponded with the seller. I am very disappointed with the the way that Paypal handled it. When I say that there is no way to appeal their decision, I mean they remove any buttons on the transaction to report it to customer service. Once they’re done with you, they’re done.
Yep. I buy scam products on purpose, with some regularity, in order to document them on YouTube and hopefully educate and warn people to avoid them. PayPal does not always resolve in favour of the buyer, even when it is an obvious scam.
In one case, they insisted that they would only action the refund if I ‘returned’ the item to China, at my own expense, via tracked method (the item had not actually been sent to me from China but had been dropshipped from a warehouse here in the UK, not 20 miles from me). The cost of ‘return’ would have wiped out the refund. I argued and appealed; they let the scammer keep the money.
And if you funded the PayPal transaction with a credit card, you may be able to charge that back and they will recover the money from PayPal. PayPal will not tolerate that happening too often - they will just terminate your account.
Go read up on the people the Unabomber sent bombs to. Virtually none were high profile people. College professors, grad students, computer store owners and such. AFAIK, Kaczynski knew none of them personally. So don’t be so sure a random package is safe to open.
I ordered some flower seeds from Amazon a few years ago and didn’t realize they were coming from China. I later got an empty envelope with a note from the USDA that they had been confiscated.
One wonders why the USDA isn’t confiscating the recent packages.
I suspect the USDA simply doesn’t catch everything. (And my package was actually labeled as seeds.)
They aren’t that good at it. SWIM has purchased cannabis seeds from the UK, Canada, and Amsterdam. Out of a dozen orders, all made it.
I got a packet! Not my missing lime seeds, since the tracking number is wrong and it’s marked as a wire but I can feel that it’s seeds. China Post.
You just know that some people are planting them…
The panic over them is a cat 5 hurricane in a thimble. Hell yes I would plant them.
You would plant an unknown seed in an area without considering that it may be an invasive species? That is not a smart move.
99.9% chance that these are common, easily available flower and vegetable seeds. The idea that China is deliberately collecting and mailing out invasive weed seeds is pure xenophobia/racism.
You do yourself no favors here by accusing me of being either xenophobic or racist.
It wasn’t my intent to call you that, but the whole vastly overblown news and social media panic about it. It is silly.