On the Internet there are deceptions and deceptions, and not everyone aims to get private data from victims. Users can also be used for other purposes, such as Sell more on online trade platforms. Is what is known as Brushingan increasingly present fraud in stores such as Amazon either Temu and that we are going to explain in this article.
The term brushing, brushing in Spanish, does not move too well the concept behind this Unplayed package scamwhich could be called more properly as ‘Order simulation’ either ‘Orders Inflate’according to the translation of its original name in China: shuā dān (刷单). In this country, this form of fraud originated that has later extended to other countries, including Spain, where the Amazon itself has an entry on its support page indicating what needs to be done if one is involved.
The Brushing scam It is not aimed at private users -although they are used to carry it out and indicates that their data may be in danger -but to the online store itself. What the scammers are looking for, who are sellers on the chosen platform, is Artificially inflate your sales volume, improve seller’s reputation or upload in search rankings of Amazon or any other online trade, cheating both consumers and the system itself.
On most platforms, such as Amazon, Aliexpress or Temu, Only users who have made a verified order can leave reviewswhich generates confidence to others who read them, and that is what the Brushing scammers exploit.
This is how the score of the unpelled package works
One can know that it is being used for this purpose when Receive at home a package that does not correspond to any purchase you have made. But before that, scammers have already taken some steps:
- Create a false buyer accountor They use stolen data (name, physical address and even email).
- They buy their own product using that false accountbut They put your address as a recipient. Thus, the system records the order as legitimate and completed.
- Since the order appears as delivered and verified, The false account can leave a positive review about the productwhich will seem written by a real buyer.
At no time do they need access to your personal account on the platform. They simply use your address as a decoy to validate shippingbut they manage everything from an account controlled by them.
The logical question is whether this is economically viable for the scammer. So that it is, what are sent are Very low cost products And even empty packages, without any content. The important thing is to be able to raise reviews with the legitimacy given by the verified purchase label.
Given this type of cases, Amazon recommends contacting customer service and inform the problem to the research team. They will request the number of unwanted packages received, the monitoring number of at least one of them and, optionally, The photo of a shipping label. Amazon also indicates that it is not necessary to proceed to return the product.