UAE residents have been receiving unordered Amazon packages delivered to their home addresses, as part of a so-called ‘brushing scam’.
These scams often occur when third-party sellers send customers packages to publicly available names and addresses, the company said in a statement.
Such unwanted packages have caused an alarm among residents as their data such as their addresses and phone numbers have been accessed by unknown senders.
Action against brushing scams
A spokesperson for Amazon UAE told Arabian Business: “At Amazon, we are relentless in our efforts to detect and prevent abuse from impacting customer experiences.
“Sellers are prohibited from sending unsolicited packages to customers. When a case arises, we investigate reports of ‘brushing’ and work to take the appropriate action on bad actors that violate our policies, such as suspending or removing selling privileges and withholding payments.
“If customers have received unsolicited packages, we encourage them to report this to our customer services team so that we can investigate and take the appropriate actions.”
In case of a brushing scam, Amazon recommends that customers use their self-service form to report the scam.
Once filled out, the form will be forwarded to Amazon’s investigation team, who will take up to 10 days to “take appropriate action”.
Customers are also advised to report such scams to the e-commerce company’s customer service, by providing the number of unordered packages received alongside any additional information to assist the investigation.
