Brushing Scams & Review Mills A 360-Degree Look At This Emerging Phenomenon
Introduction Woke up to find multiple delivery boxes from Amazon stacked up near your door? While you may feel elated that you have gotten free gifts from a wellmeaning stranger, such types of acts may be part of a big scam! Known as brushing scams, these are usually engineered by companies that want to boost the amount of fake reviews on products they want to sell. The sender of the package creates a fake account on an e-commerce portal and sends orders to different addresses. Once they are delivered, the use their accounts to generate fraudulent, positive reviews to enhance their visibility and ratings.
Origin Of Such Scams Brushing scams caught our attention in the month of July in 2020 when there were reports of seed packets being delivered to random address in Canada and the U.S. These were believed to be part of brushing scams that originated in China. There were several warnings issued to the general public to not plant such seeds as they might threaten the country’s natural biodiversity. However, this is a different story.
Most of such scams usually involve sending cheap, mostly lightweight products in order to increase sales numbers and reviews The former makes the company’s bottom line look good even though it is literally spending its own money.
Can You Keep These Packages? You are permitted to own the packages that have been sent to you, as per regulations set forth by the Federal Trade Commision. However, it is illegal to demand payment for a product that you never placed an order for.
The Problem There is a substantial chance that someone may also have access to your bank account information and Social Security number. Such information can be used to steal your money or for loans in your name. At the same time, others may get defrauded by the stellar, fake reviews that the company writes for itself. Therefore, do take the following steps if you are a victim of a brushing scam.
1. Report The Fraud It is important to notify the e-commerce portal if you believe that a brusher has sent you a package without your permission. The anti-fraud department of the e-commerce portal will take effective steps to deal with such fraudulent entities and fake reviews.
2. Update Passwords If someone has your home address because you typed it out on a fake website accessed through a spammy link, make sure that you change all your important passwords. This also includes going through your credit card statement to check if your security has been compromised. Remember to not click on suspicious links and spam emails in the future.
Thank You! Presented & Reviewed By: Yashasvi Parihar Manager, Marketing 2.0 Conference https://www.marketing2conf.com/