On Thanksgiving, I got an alert from my credit card app about fraud. I logged in and found multiple fraudulent charges. The card was suspended, and I called the fraud department. They opened a case, canceled the card, and issued a new one. Everything seemed like a normal fraud case. What stood out though is that the fraudulent charges were from wellness companies and possibly a web hosting or social media management company. Then on Saturday, and again today, we received unexpected packages from companies I recognized from those charges. They’re from wellness companies selling supplements I’ve never heard of. My husband opened one, thinking I had ordered it, and even tried one of the vitamin gummies. He called the company, but the customer service was outsourced and they didn’t seem to care. So, what’s the scam? Did someone use my card to order things and send them here?
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Sounds like brushing. Most cases don’t use stolen info, but sometimes they do.
Bright said:
Sounds like brushing. Most cases don’t use stolen info, but sometimes they do.
Hi, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Brushing or Direct shipping scam.
The scammer creates fake orders and ships them out to boost order numbers and get false reviews. Here is the Wikipedia page explaining brushing, and here is a news article about it. If you’re just receiving low-cost items, it’s probably not a big deal for your private info. But if you get something expensive like electronics, it might mean your account is compromised.
You should check your account to see if any orders were made under your name. A scammer might use your account or a stolen credit card to buy things and ship them to you. If your Amazon account was hacked, for example, orders might be hidden from your order history. You can check archived orders at this link: Amazon.com.
If that list is clean, it means the orders didn’t come from your account.
It could be a couple of things, brushing as already mentioned, or maybe something worse.
Someone could have gotten your credit card info, gone on a shopping spree for themselves and their friends/family. By sending you SOME of the things, it makes it harder for you to claim fraud. It also makes it tougher for the fraudster to be caught. If they just shipped everything to their own place, it would be obvious that they had your credit card info. But by sending stuff to multiple houses, they can just say, ‘I don’t know where it came from,’ and the investigation could close without finding the fraudster.