Could it be possible that the seller had actually shipped luxury items???
Seeing a parcel at your doorstep after coming home from a long day at work is usually a pleasant surprise – but not for Mr Terrence Chong. For two and a half months this year, the 46-year-old and his wife were plagued by daily deliveries of empty if not wrongly labelled packages that they never ordered to begin with.
Initially Mr Chong, who works in a private education institution, thought the parcels were being sent to the wrong address. They had just moved in a few weeks earlier, so they checked with the previous owners, who said they had never received any such strange deliveries. No packages arrived when the flat was being renovated, either.
The packages – mostly from e-commerce platforms like Shopee and Lazada – kept coming, and in greater frequency after the first month or so. On better days, three or four parcels arrive; “but mostly it’s seven or eight”, said Mr Chong, sighing. “Sometimes, in the morning, I keep a few parcels; then in the afternoon, again, there are a few more.” He said they’ve received more than 100 of these packages in total.
Despite being labelled as a ceiling fan, Coach wallet or projector among others, the parcels were mostly too small and flat to contain such items. CNA contacted Shopee after speaking with Mr Chong. The platform reached out to him in mid-November, to say that they had identified sellers and buyers who placed orders to his address, and banned all the accounts. After that conversation, the parcels stopped arriving.
Mr Chong suspects he was a victim of what’s called brushing or review brushing” …”Inflating the number of products sold can also make a seller more visible on e-commerce platforms, which often rely on algorithms that focus on products with positive reviews.” …”“To protect themselves, consumers are advised to exercise caution when relying on online reviews to make their purchasing decisions,” CCCS said.
It urged consumers to take a deeper look at reviews; be wary of overly positive or negative ones as well as those posted under similar names or using similar language; and to check multiple websites or platforms if possible.
