• PCF is an eBay Partner. If you make a purchase through one of our links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!

Mine Um, so I just did a thing, with a Barrington Table, maybe, use your own caution (1 Viewer)

buffalojim said:
I'll give it another month showing "out for delivery", then I'll really start to worry. I live on a corner so it's really tough to find.
Click to expand...
Corner of 39th, perhaps?

1679513374820.png
 
I got to thinking, why couldnt they just ship a tiny package to SOMEONE in the US, and give everyone that orders that week the same tracking number.
There's no information on that tracking where its going, how much it weighs, etc.
Hell, do we even know if parcelsapp.com is a legitimate tracking site?

I'm afraid the sender did the above and can now claim, "it's not our problem, it was sucessfully delivered."
 
This got me to thinking if there's any connection to those strange, unsolicited seed packets that people were getting shipped to them a while back, from China.

So I just read an article on The Atlantic about what's known as a "brushing scam"

"The consensus, right from the start, among many government officials, journalists, and comment-section know-it-alls, was that the seeds were probably part of a mundane, illicit e-commerce strategy commonly known as a brushing scam.

Although brushing is a fairly banal form of e-commerce chicanery, it’s also weirdly complicated, counterintuitive, and tricky to explain. Let me try.

In one common, modern-day form, it operates something like this: Chinese companies compete for the highest placements in search listings on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and AliExpress. Although the algorithms behind these rankings are secret, they are presumed to be affected by volume of sales and positive customer feedback. Some companies try to manipulate the rankings by inventing fake transactions. They, or most likely subcontractors, set up accounts using people’s real names and addresses. The companies then pretend to send something of value to those addresses and post fake glowing reviews under the recipients’ names.

All well and good, in its own crooked way, except that some platforms verify such transactions by requiring tracking data showing that a package has indeed traveled from the company to the customer’s address. That’s where the seeds come in. For the scam to work, a real package needs to be sent. But instead of the more valuable item the company is pretending to have sold, something cheap is substituted—hair ties, say, or plastic trinkets.

Or—it appeared—seeds. If this was brushing, the fact that seeds were being sent was more or less incidental. The seeds might still represent a biological threat—e-commerce hucksters are hardly likely to have researched which species might be appropriately imported into different parts of the United States—but only a haphazard one, not a targeted attempt to disrupt American agriculture, never mind anything more sinister."

So, they could ship out little things with a tracking number, but it's unlikely a poker table. Damn, I'm still hoping this ends happily.
 
Colquhoun said:
Hell, do we even know if parcelsapp.com is a legitimate tracking site?
Click to expand...
It’s a website that extracts the tracking data from major shipping/courier company

I used that because it is in English, since I think most PCF don’t understand mandarin if I just post the tracker from China Post

IMG_5909.jpeg
 
Last edited:
LeLe said:
Successfully delivered?

View attachment 1162824
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, it does show delivered, doesn't it? Yeah, I got nothing here, I even looked on my roof. Obviously this was a scam. That's what I get for snap buying and not checking out the website better beforehand. I feel like I got my money's worth out of it and a good laugh.
 
buffalojim said:
I feel like I got my money's worth out of it and a good laugh.
Click to expand...
Honestly, the Value you've gotten is actually quite high. Skipping over the pleasure of reading the post and the member interactions.
The scrutiny members will have (should) if they find something that seems in a more appropriate range. They are more likely to do due diligence because of this post.

I'm typically sarcastic, but genuinely its a good post to read, the 'brushing' was interesting and informative as well. Thanks for posting it!
 
Machine said:
Honestly, the Value you've gotten is actually quite high. Skipping over the pleasure of reading the post and the member interactions.
The scrutiny members will have (should) if they find something that seems in a more appropriate range. They are more likely to do due diligence because of this post.

I'm typically sarcastic, but genuinely its a good post to read, the 'brushing' was interesting and informative as well. Thanks for posting it!
Click to expand...
Yeah, soooo... ummm. This showed up and I'm not home. I also have nothing coming from Amazon that should look like this. Does this resemble a Barrington box?
Screenshot_20230712-105752~2.png
 
buffalojim said:
Yeah, soooo... ummm. This showed up and I'm not home. I also have nothing coming from Amazon that should look like this. Does this resemble a Barrington box?
View attachment 1162966
Click to expand...
Damn, stole my idea.

Guys, we should all send our empty Barrington boxes to Jim!
 
BGinGA said:
You have no idea how many dark web lists you are now on......
Click to expand...
^^ This, yes. They have your address and CC info. Sad but you should go ahead and file a fraud report with your CC... Although if I remember correctly, they only provide protection for anything OVER $50? I wonder if so many items are priced at $49.99 for that reason. It sucks but I'd really be on guard watching my CC account and other things. Man, I feel bad for you.
 
Last edited:

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account and join our community. It's easy!

Register

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.


Back
Top Bottom