Ask HN: How do are they trying to scam me?
The last 2 weeks I have receive in total 7 packages from Amazon, addressed to me and on my addresss that I haven't ordered. All items were of very small value. Less than $10 each. Some as little as $1.
First time I called Amazon they told me it was a mistake and I shouldn't be worry.
Second time they told me that they were sent from another account, but they cannot tell me anything more about it and I shouldn't worry.
Third time they told me the name on the account is "Elia" but they wouldn't give me any more details, and again they told me I shouldn't worry.
Fourth time today I called them and they started again with the usual story of saying they cannot tell me who is sending the packages to me. However when I mentioned the name "Elia" the representative lost her guard and came back and told me that after looking further in this account she could see that the card used had actually my name. Not only that, but the account had only 7 orders, all sent to me.
She then proceeded to ask me the four last digits of the card! No matter how hard I tried to explain that I cannot know the last for digits because I don't know which card it is, I didn't manage to make any progress.
She kept insisting that "Elia" is my relative and I gave them my credit card number. Tried to escalate to fraud department but they told me that there is no such department and I can only escalate to the supervisor. The supervisor was even more tight with her replies and she refused to provide any more info.
In the mean time I have checked as many of my credit cards as I remember and non of them show any suspicious activity.
My question is, how are these scammers trying to scam me? Anybody had a similar experience before? If they are not using truly one of my credit cards, how come they use my name? I checked my credit report and I don't think it is a case of identify thief either. What could be going on here? This could just be brushing, i.e. orders placed so sellers can get fake reviews: * https://clark.com/scams-rip-offs/amazon-scam-brushing-warnin... * http://mentalfloss.com/article/567488/beware-amazon-packages... That looks interesting. Thank for the links And maybe a fake Name on Card (available with something like Privacy.com, not saying that particularly was used but virtual card services like that were used) was used to simply verify the transaction and get through Amazon's fraud detection. I know Amazon is different, but AliExpress sellers have sent low value packages to random addresses they have gathered so that AliExpress can track and verify the package was delivered.
Somehow, they grow their trustworthiness under their eyes with the scheme. Just a bit of info that might be semi related or make you think why would something like that happen. Hmm. But what do they win? What’s the end game? The end game is to get lots of 5 star reviews to attract more customers and get more sales. AliExpress is 10x worse than Amazon when it comes to fake reviews so fake reviews isn't just widespread on the platform, it's the absolute norm.