Hundreds of Americans Planted 'Chinese Mystery Seeds' (vice.com) 166
An anonymous reader shares a report from Motherboard, written by Jason Koebler: In late July, America was briefly enthralled with "Unsolicited Seeds from China," which started showing up in mailboxes in all 50 states. These mystery seeds prompted warnings from the USDA, which said people should not plant them, and should instead alert their state agricultural authority and mail them to the USDA or their local officials. Many Americans heeded this advice. Many more decidedly did not. According to documents obtained by Motherboard from state departments of agriculture, at least hundreds, perhaps thousands of Americans planted the seeds. Since the seed story originally broke, I have been obsessed with learning more. To do this, I filed 52 freedom of information requests; one with each of the departments of agriculture (or their state-level equivalent) in all 50 states plus Washington DC and Puerto Rico. I also filed requests with the USDA and several of its labs. Thousands of pages of emails, spreadsheets, reports, and documents, as well as audio voicemail recordings, have been trickling in for the last month, and they have been enlightening in many ways.
While scanning through thousands of pages of documents about the seeds, it became clear that, for at least the first few weeks, no one had any idea who sent the seeds, where they came from (other than "China"), or the goal of the seed mailing campaign. Eventually, the official line became that this was a "brushing" campaign, in which items of small value are sent to people whose online accounts have been compromised, or are sent to people as a "gift." In order to leave a positive review from a "verified buyer" (which is weighted higher because the person nominally bought and used the product), you need to have actually bought or received an item, so by receiving seeds, reviews from that account or name will be weighted higher. The "brushing" idea is still what USDA and other agencies are saying, but, at least in the emails I've reviewed there's very little talk about how the scam worked or why it happened. This campaign also seems to be much larger than any other known brushing campaign or any other seed mailing campaign.
One thing is clear to me, from reading these documents. American people do not seem particularly well-prepared for scams of this nature. The emails between public officials and scientists, who were dealing with a difficult situation, seem efficient, professional, and appropriately cautious. But communication from the general public is concerning. People planted seeds even when expressly told not to. Hundreds of people had no idea whether they had ever ordered seeds, or how to check. Some people called 911. Others ate the seeds. Others ordered something specific, got what they ordered from who they ordered it from, then still panicked. Others were furious they had to pay for postage to send the seeds to the government. From one recipient in North Carolina: "I did not receive seeds. I received a suspicious package from China with a spoon and a fork in it my concerns are that it is full of Covid."
While scanning through thousands of pages of documents about the seeds, it became clear that, for at least the first few weeks, no one had any idea who sent the seeds, where they came from (other than "China"), or the goal of the seed mailing campaign. Eventually, the official line became that this was a "brushing" campaign, in which items of small value are sent to people whose online accounts have been compromised, or are sent to people as a "gift." In order to leave a positive review from a "verified buyer" (which is weighted higher because the person nominally bought and used the product), you need to have actually bought or received an item, so by receiving seeds, reviews from that account or name will be weighted higher. The "brushing" idea is still what USDA and other agencies are saying, but, at least in the emails I've reviewed there's very little talk about how the scam worked or why it happened. This campaign also seems to be much larger than any other known brushing campaign or any other seed mailing campaign.
One thing is clear to me, from reading these documents. American people do not seem particularly well-prepared for scams of this nature. The emails between public officials and scientists, who were dealing with a difficult situation, seem efficient, professional, and appropriately cautious. But communication from the general public is concerning. People planted seeds even when expressly told not to. Hundreds of people had no idea whether they had ever ordered seeds, or how to check. Some people called 911. Others ate the seeds. Others ordered something specific, got what they ordered from who they ordered it from, then still panicked. Others were furious they had to pay for postage to send the seeds to the government. From one recipient in North Carolina: "I did not receive seeds. I received a suspicious package from China with a spoon and a fork in it my concerns are that it is full of Covid."
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What's with Japan and crazy plants? We have a kudzu problem in my state. The stuff can grow so fast you can almost see it happen.
Re:Invasive species (Score:4, Informative)
What's with Japan and crazy plants? We have a kudzu problem in my state. The stuff can grow so fast you can almost see it happen.
Kudzu can only grow in certain ecosystems, and some in the US are too tough for it. I know of a weed brought over here on purpose a long time ago by Europeans that is decimating the landscape but gets nowhere near enough attention:
I've see this weed all the way up to - and likely across - the Canadian border now. It tends to sprout up on the edge of the forest but can take root damned near anywhere. It has exactly zero natural predators on this continent because nothing that lives here recognizes it as food. It also actively partakes in chemical warfare in the soil, creating soil that is not conducive to life for the plants that were there beforehand. It can spread by seed or root, and it is one of the fastest growing non-trees in the spring (easily reaching 3-4 feet by April in many places).
The only advantage we have against it is that it has no thorns, does not cause allergic reactions for most people, and has a weak root system - in other words any person of even below-average strength can easily rip it out by hand without protection when they see it (my 5 year old can rip it out no problem).
In other words don't pin it all on the Japanese, we Europeans have fucked it up pretty well here as well.
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Garlic Mustard
It's also edible, so bon appetit!
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Garlic Mustard
It's also edible, so bon appetit!
Indeed it is, but there is too much growing in my area for interested people to eat it all even if they tried. I really like the idea a group had for a pull and pesto contest [cromwellvalleypark.org] and I've considered trying to further it in my area in a future (non-pandemic) year.
Re:Invasive species (Score:4, Funny)
You can't fool me! I've seen enough Japanese anime to know how dangerous those plants are to girls in short skirts!
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That's a problem in the parks and forest preserves around here.
Buckthorn is the invasive plant that's causing me problems in my yard. It has thorns, and has an aggressively spreading root system from which new shoots sprout, meaning if you remove a plant, it's likely only a small part of the organism, and you almost never get the whole root.
Too many scard stories (Score:2)
Knotweed is nowhere near as bad as its made out, we had some. Yes it can destroy concrete and walls - left to its own devices - but so can many plants given time. Have you seen what an oak tree can do? And even grass can grow through tiny cracks in concrete. It certainly does grow fast , but at the end of the day its just a type of bamboo and they all do and its just as susceptable to glyphosate as other weeds. It took standard glyphosate and 2 summers to kill our outbreak (created by neighbours dumping cra
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Well whatever it is, its not the aggressive invader its made out to be, its just a fast growing plant. Leave it for months and yes it'll become a problem , spray it as soon as you see any shoots appear and it won't.
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"I can't let misinformation about plants to propagate!"
I can't tell if this is some kind of botanist joke or not :)
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these people will probably learn their lesson the hard way.
You've got way more faith in humanity than I do. It never ceases to amaze me how people will do dumb shit, consequences be damned.
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... and these people will probably learn their lesson the hard way.
I wish that was the case, but apparently "learning" is not something these people do.
These people are the reason that hairdryers have a label telling you not to use them in the shower.
Come on people (Score:5, Funny)
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I have not laughed so hard at a sentence in a Slashdot summary in a very long time. "Others ate the seeds."
That's good stuff. Totally made my day.
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Just don't go to sleep! (Score:4, Funny)
The seeds quickly grew into pods which cloned the body of the planters, assuming their personae and killing the original - thus causing CCP infiltration!
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So this is a way to generate insensate bodies for sex?
Messaging from authorities (Score:3)
Re: Messaging from authorities (Score:2)
Thats because it was not sinister. They were random seeds. The most likely theory to date is that the recipients had compromised amazon accounts and those amazon accounts were used to post fake reviews. It works in this manner
1. Use compromised amazon account to order some product ensuring the payment and email notifications are done in a way that the real account holder is unaware of the transaction.
2. Mail seeds instead of actual products since the cost of misc seeds is nothing compared to the actual prod
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Thats because it was not sinister. They were random seeds. The most likely theory to date is that the recipients had compromised amazon accounts and those amazon accounts were used to post fake reviews. It works in this manner
1. Use compromised amazon account to order some product ensuring the payment and email notifications are done in a way that the real account holder is unaware of the transaction.
They don't even have to have compromised accounts. The sellers can create fake accounts with real addresses gleaned from data breaches, and their own (or possibly stolen) payment info, buy their own products from their fake accounts, then leave verified reviews of the product they are trying to sell (which, as you noted, the seeds were sent in their place).
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Any Matanuska Thunder-Fuck or Platinum OG??
Americans know what weed seeds look like. Those would have been identified, and then not planted because you don't want to risk herms
Re: Messaging from authorities (Score:2)
Not to mention some of them can go for $30 a seed. Not the best choice to run that scam.
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I dont think they thought that far ahead. You can pick up a few thousand seeds of just everyday shit for next to nothing, I bet a small envelope of seeds in china cost all of 15 cents. Socks probably cost a couple dollars, and shipping was probably cheaper too. This is probably a very small startup. If you really wanted to pull off tricking people into planting an invasive species you would do a better job at package labeling. Pick a garden seed that is similar in size, shape, color, and something people mi
What were the seeds? (Score:3)
What were the seeds? Vegetables, flowers, something else?
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Exactly. Wth is this still a mystery? They should have some germinating in a lab but experts at a local U should be able to narrow it way down just from the seeds.
If these got into the wild, would it be evil, or just another flower or tuber?
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If this is really part of a Brushing scam then they're going to send people stuff they already have on hand, they're not going to go out and purposely collect noxious invasive weed seeds.
On the other hand, if they send the seeds to a different ecosystem, what they have at hand on their side of the globe may be harmless there, but invasive somewhere else. And several coman garden flowers are poisenous. So if I send some common seeds like for lily of the valley to someone with kids and they plant it, it may be fatal.
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Breaking Bad reference? Nice.
I remember hearing this rising panic when it started, but never really got how it needed to be anything more than, "I didn't order this. Meh." And either return to sender or destroy the seeds. I feel like we Americans have our panic levels so high in general that every little thing now causes some big row. Just seems ridiculous that this is still being stirred around as if it was something that truly matters.
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Breaking Bad reference? Nice.
Not intentional. Never watched it.
I feel like we Americans have our panic levels so high in general that every little thing now causes some big row.
And I blame social media for that. Everyone hopes that he will have that one post that goes viral and post about everything and nothing. And then - big surprise - the post about mystery seeds are shared more often than the latest lunch picture.
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Breaking Bad reference? Nice.
Not intentional. Never watched it.
It played a big part in the story for a bit where a kid was poisoned with it.
I feel like we Americans have our panic levels so high in general that every little thing now causes some big row.
And I blame social media for that. Everyone hopes that he will have that one post that goes viral and post about everything and nothing. And then - big surprise - the post about mystery seeds are shared more often than the latest lunch picture.
I'd say it's actually a combination of social media and big media. I mean, big media spent years attempting to get us riled up about every little thing. The number of "How is your home trying to kill you? Tune in at ten to find out!" commercials I saw over the years is mind boggling. Then the figured out that social media somehow grabs people's attention and switched to literally grabbing the most passed around stories online a
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What were the seeds? Vegetables, flowers, something else?
Yes. From one website:
They include mustard seeds, cabbage, morning glory, rose, hibiscus, and mint
Probaby some scam sellers decided sending random seeds would be cheaper and easier than sending the real products for the fake reviews.
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Which seems bizarre to me -- if I was conducting a scam in China, odds are I would be living in an urban area where actual plant seeds would be more obnoxious to come by than some other, light, easy to ship product, like say, plastic beads or some other plastic doohicky. Hell, you could probably find some random plastics factory willing to drop-ship the product for you.
I'm just kind of surprised that *seeds* turned out to be the easiest item for whoever did this to ship. Maybe it was just a case of the sc
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Or they could have been expired or nearly expired, (seeds have a shelf life of a few years), so they were probably free... or even doing someone a favor by getting rid of them.
They could have sent empty envelopes and it would have met the requirements for a 'brushing campaign'... but it makes sense they'd stuff them with something on hand they got for free that was light enough that the postage would still the minunum. Empty envelopes would probably get more attention -- at least seeds could be explained a
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Maybe this scam has been going on for years, and the only reason we've noticed now is that seeds suddenly became cheaper than whatever they were shipping before. (Someone's brother-in-law had a few trucks full of them that he needed to dispose of in a hurry?)
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Testing (Score:2)
Or maybe the seeds grow into plants that will eavesdrop on your WiFi?
Yet another piece of the puzzle (Score:5, Funny)
People are idiots. Coronavirus sure has proven that.
That people would plant or event EAT (JFC ....) seeds of unknown provenance that weren't specifically ordered by them just takes the cake.
To quote that maître d' from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"
I weep for the future
Are these seeds bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok I get it.
1. This is a scam for the seller to give themselves higher ranking.
2. The USDA really should know what foreign plants we are planing. As it could mess up the ecosystem.
However I feel the burden of responsibility should go towards Amazon. They are OKing a purchase of Seeds from one country to another seeming to avoid customs. Yes it is a different seller, however if you are using Amazon as your marketplace, Amazon should have ultimate responsibility on what it sells.
Now other than who should be blamed. How bad is the damage really? Are the plants evasive. or will they be eaten up by bugs, and die off from American Climates before they can reproduce.
Re:Are these seeds bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
However I feel the burden of responsibility should go towards Amazon. They are OKing a purchase of Seeds from one country to another seeming to avoid customs.
Most likely, Amazon thinks the products being shipped are something else. The sellers are just sending the seeds instead of the actual products because seeds are cheap, plentiful, and small/light(so extra cheap shipping). They assume that the "customer" received the product being ordered, and since the person at that address didn't actually order it so there is no order number to report, the seller gets away with it. Meanwhile, the shippers are posting verified reviews under the fake account linked to that real address.
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Still I see the responsibility to be on Amazon.
Many of today's big Companies are making money off of selling products in which they have not invested into any controls on them.
If a shipper shipped bad or dangerous product to Walmart, and Walmart stocked and sold them. They are responsible to what they have sold. Thus will need to take back items on their own dime. They may choose legal actions to the vendor to get their money back, but that is later.
If the seller is "Selling" illegal or dangerous product
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Most likely, Amazon thinks the products being shipped are something else.
TFA says at least some of the packets were labelled as "stud earrings". I assume US Customs opens or X-rays a random selection of incoming packets and rejects any where the contents isn't as described. I wonder if the scammer actually sells stud earrings, or if they just put that on the label because (they thought) the seeds would look like stud earrings on an X-ray?
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"unprepared for scams of this nature" (Score:2)
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I have yet to see anything suggesting that the recipients of these seeds were in risk of anything more than having unwanted plants growing in their garden (a risk which is easily avoided by not planting the seeds).
Apparently it's not that easy, because some people did plant the seeds.
Planting unknown seeds is by definition a risk. It's not as serious as some other risks, but that doesn't make it not a risk. It can cause real problems. Maybe not cataclysm-level problems, but that doesn't make them not problems.
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It's not like this packages of seeds arrived with a message suggesting that planting them would accomplish some noble goal (I remember a few years ago some organization when asking people to sign up to receive wild flower seeds to be planted in order to help various wild b
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Why should people be prepared for scams? Because there are a lot of bad people out there who want to separate you from your money.
Let me tell you about an acquaintance of mine. He's a conspiracy nut, the kind of person who will believe anything you say if you make it sound like a conspiracy. In a word, "gullible."
He's also the type who worships people of wealth, power, and authority, including our men in green and blue. I think by now you can guess his political affiliation.
So one day he got a call from the
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It's not like these seeds arrived with some message asking the person to plant them for some supposedly noble purpose.
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Whether it's a scam of a different nature is, like, your opinion, man. I tend to be wary of anything unsolicited until I understand what's in it for the other person. Isn't that a useful thing to teach kids?
Day of the Triffids - revisited (Score:2)
Seriously, how were all those seeds let into the USA? Where were the customs inspections?
I would not be surprised if a lot of very invasive species were sent to the USA. This won't end well.
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What are they seeds of? (Score:2)
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This does not make sense. I saw pictures (Score:2)
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amazon merchant shippng does confirm handoff to USA system
Here we go... (Score:2)
... the new kudzu takes hold in the U.S.
Alert the Tick! (Score:2)
This is clearly the work of El Seed [thetick.ws].
No. (Score:4, Insightful)
"One thing is clear to me, from reading these documents. American people do not seem particularly well-prepared for scams of this nature. "
I'm an American, so believe me when I say that the one thing that's clear is that people - in this case Americans, but I suspect it's a widespread affliction - are fucking idiots.
Why not? (Score:2)
Millions of Americans eat mystery meat, a little seed can't make them afraid.
I am getting sewing needles (Score:2)
I have been getting packages from China containing two packs of sewing needles.
I didn't order them, or anything like them, yet they have come every month, six times so far.
I did not try to plant them.
Jack (Score:2)
I sent you to the market to sell the cow. And all you brought back are these lousy beans.
The Windup Girl (Score:2)
Ah, so this is how the events in The Windup Girl begin.
Oy. So dumb.
Triffids (Score:3)
CRISPR (Score:2)
I don't even really give a flying fuck at this point. We've already set ourselves up as a species to kill ourselves off in at least half a dozen ways that we probably can't back out of now, what's one more way to get wrecked? I'll probably be dead before the end anyway.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
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OUR ENTIRE SPECIES IS STUPID.
I guess that explains why, even after many years of trying, the dolphins and other intelligent species still refuse to speak to us. Can't say I blame them.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
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The person 'selling' the seeds created hundreds of fake accounts, using completely random, but real addresses. They then 'sell' the seeds to these fake accounts in order to be able to log on with one of the fake accounts and leave a positive review. This review gets more cookies because from the system's point of view, it's from an actual 'customer'. The people receiving the seeds just happened to live at the random addresses the 'seeders' used when creating their fake accounts.
The product in question getting reviewed most likely isn't even seeds. It's probably something else. The scam seller probably just went with seeds because they are small and light (so cheap shipping), and cheap and easy to get.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
The scam seller probably just went with seeds because they are small and light (so cheap shipping), and cheap and easy to get.
There is no possible way that's the explanation. It had to be something involving the governments, likely China and Russia, colluding to take over the grain market. The seeds actually contain micro-robots developed by Bill Gates, and when "planted" they begin to zero in on their targets: Earth worms. Once they find and infect an earth worm they quickly kill the host and use the proteins in the body to build more micro robots, then repeat the process much like a virus. Eventually, once all the worms are dead, the robots self destruct. The combination of the lack of nitrogen in the soil from the lack of worm excrement, and the contamination from the billions of nano-robots decaying, our soil becomes incapable of growing more crops. Unable to sustain our own food supply we turn to China and Russia to supply us with corn, thus allowing them to take over the world. This "brushing" thing the US Gov't came up with is just a cover until we can develop the robot eating worms. Clearly that's a more logical explanation.
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The truth is out there. . . . (Score:2)
. . . at some unspecified, future date, the REAL genes hidden inside the 'seeds' will manifest, and we'll be surrounded by man-eating, Mean Green Motha's from Outer Space. . . .
. . .but don't trust me, ask Seymour Krelborn. . . . ;)
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Occam's Razor is strong in this one.
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They used to do that but then not ship the items. Some online markets got wise to it and started requiring proof of postage with a verifiable address. So now they send out packets of seeds.
Clearly the solution needs to be something that doesn't incentivize creating fake accounts and sending small low value items out.
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But they could send out packets of nothing! Or rocks, or sand, or stickers that say "i Love Xi"
Why send seeds specifically?
If one were paranoid (or just inclined to letting one's imagination run around in circles occasionally) one might believe that some of the seeds send out were malicious, and the rest are being sent out as cover.
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Why send seeds specifically?
Cheap and easy to buy in bulk?
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, when you plant those China seeds, they immediately sprout miniatuer Huawei 5G antennas and begin to spread the Wuhan virus.
Some also command Alexa devices to send your recorded conversations to Beijing instead of fort Meade.
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Customs declarations. If they lie they might get bulk stopped.
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"Why send seeds specifically?"
They are cheap, they weigh nothing and it's respectable business, some companies even send single seeds for lots of money.
OTOH you can scratch them from your breakfast bun for free.
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+1 Haven't heard about Triffids for decades!
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"+1 Haven't heard about Triffids for decades!"
Today is the day of the triffids.
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And it's sequel, The Yesterday of the Triffids!
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon's verification that the package was delivered is what's making this scam work. The brusher will create a fake account for a random address, "buy" the product, then ship something cheap and light, and put in the tracking number. After it gets delivered to the confused random person, the brusher will login as the fake user and enter a positive review. Since amazon "sees" the package got delivered, they consider the review to be genuine. (aka "reviews from verified purchasers")
This can't be a very cheap process, though to do it at any useful scale you'd think it would add up.. The item (seeds, plastic forks, etc) are cheap, and the shipping is probably just first class envelope (the lowest trackable option available), and the brusher (this is probably a "service", so the brusher is getting paid too) is probably pretty cheap, but if you want hundreds of these, surely the return-on-investment is low? Probably using cheap labor in China etc, or maybe even MechanicalTurk? Amazon is also getting their cut from every sale so that gas to add in as well.
Though bearing in mind, this can be done to "brush" expensive items, or brush a crappy piece of junk knockoff of an expensive product, where the margin is very high and only bad reviews would normally keep it in check. That's my best guess, is they're selling crap desribed as good quality and using brushing to drown out the 1-star reviews, returns, and complaints. Not sure how Amazon is going to tackle this problem. The brushers have exposed a difficult-to-patch weakness in the "verified purchaser's review" system.
I've personally experienced a lesser form of this a few times in the past. I ordered an item that had a stated ship-by date, and on the last day I got a tracking number. What I got a few days later was what looked like a chinese christmas tree ornament, a colorful tassled square-hole coin on a hanger. I contacted the seller to tell them they'd sent the wrong item, and they immediately responded and assured me that was just a "free gift" to apologize for the late shipment. In the end they did ship my item and I got it, though it was a good week or two later than I was expecting. I have no doubt this was done for the seller to pay to maintain his "shipped on time" rating with Amazon. This isn't really "brushing" (making the product look better than it actually is), but I don't know if there's a common name for it yet.
My concern though was the seller had provided Amazon with proof of delivery, and if he decided to not actually send my item, I might have a problem proving he didn't send what he claimed to have sent, and I'd have to deal with the hassle of doing a return, and possibly him claiming I didn't return the actual item or returned a damaged item. Thankfully, in the end I got my item both times, but I do make sure I immediately contact the seller (through Amazon) so there's a record of my reporting the wrong item delivered, WITH photos that include both the item and the packaging, in case I have to fight it later on.
It should be possible to report brushing to Amazon, although I don't think they have a specific option in place yet on their help portal. If you provide the tracking number, they should be able to look it up and match it to the reported "sale" (tracking works both ways!) to identify the brusher and delete their review, maybe penalizing or warning the seller in the process. Since the seller is the one that initially provided Amazon with the tracking number, it would be difficult to plead innocence/frame/setup. The other possible (automated) route is to compare the item shipped with things like shipping method or weight. If the item is a 20LB humidifier and tracking provided was for a first class envelope or a bubble padded mailer, or the box shipped weighed in at 11 ounces, that ought to be able to raise some sort of automatic flag for review?
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Invasive species can be hilariously destructive to where the mere presence of some plants on property will make your insurance agent say "Nope, not touching this."
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Let me dump a pile of coral snake eggs in your neighborhood, they're only eggs after all, why would you worry so much? :)
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Let me dump a pile of coral snake eggs in your neighborhood, they're only eggs after all, why would you worry so much? :)
I agree completely, these seeds could grow into massive flesh eating Chinese communist monster plants with teeth like a T-Rex and an appetite for good American capitalist flesh to go with that set of teeth: https://d2j1wkp1bavyfs.cloudfr... [cloudfront.net] So cheer up, you now finally have a reason to use that M2 flamethrower you were saving for the day when Obama came for your guns but then the damn bastard never showed up ... FLAME ON!! ;-)
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OK, they won't survive the winter around here.
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Americans are top tier.
Oh, I see you haven't traveled much?
It's easy to sit in your house and say everyone around you in your neighborhood is dumb, or everyone in some far off place you only know from tabloids is dumb.
But if you really get out there and start talking to people, then you'll realize that most people everywhere are just morons, living their life from day to day.
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And half of them are even dumber than that.
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I'm actually less worried about that.
First of all, it should be stopped as customs as those other seeds should have. (And I hope after this, they have an eye on seed packages.) And even though it would be as easy as sending these harmless seeds for creating fake customer reviews, there is no financial incentive in doing so.
I know that some people just want to see the world burn, but I still hope that they are largely outnumbered by petty amazon scammers.