📩 'Brushing' Scam Sends People Free Items In The Mail

Even our producer was affected by this!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
And Amanda gam Nation. How of that produces? Monica?

Speaker 2 (00:05):
So you told us this morning about something you got
in the mail yesterday.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's a scam, but it's a weird one.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Yeah, very strange. I got a tracking notification yesterday Australia
Post and I'm like, oh, someone's sending me a Christmas gift.
I've got no idea what this is. I'm not expecting anything.
I haven't ordered anything. Tracking is completely legitimate. I get
a message from my building management saying come and pick
up the package, and I'm like, oh, okay, what is this.

(00:31):
Go in and it's this sort of like Amazon looking parcel.
I open it and it's scrap material, just nothing in there,
no note, no nothing, just my address, my phone number,
everything but scrap material in this package. So I'm thinking
this is a scam.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
But what kind of scam.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
I think it's something called brushing, which is like they
send these parcels out with no real like no one's
made the order, right, But it's to get fake reviews.
So they write themselves a positive review saying you know,
this person received this in the mail and they loved
it and whatever, and they've got all your details, so
they've verified details.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
So they can say we've got a stack of customers. Yeah,
so they could fake that, but they can verify that
they've got customers.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yes, yes, this.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Scrap material just rags, I presuming.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, there was a couple of odd socks in it,
but it was like really really odd stuff, so sort
of like half a pair of leggings and like an
odd sock and then just like scraps scraps of material.
So really freaked me out.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Why would so, Yes, they can say they've got customers,
but wouldn't it cost them to mail this stuff out?

Speaker 1 (01:40):
And how'd they get your phone number?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
I don't know. I don't know. I guess it's out there,
I mean from previous orders or something like that. I
don't know whether maybe the same company has this information
and they just keep it on file.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
And knowing you you googled.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
This, I did. That's how I found it. So I
was like, Okay, so this has happened before. I found
like a Reddit thread and sort of followed that along
and then found an article on nine and yeah, it
seems to be happening a lot at the moment around Christmas.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yeah, but this is a timely warning, just like you
gave us a warning about the about the methanol poisoning.
This happened to you, and thankfully you're okay through it.
Monic is becoming like a bit of a consumer watch
dog now the brushing scam, we could have Monica's consumer
watchdog report.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
But in this weird scam, you're not being scammed. They
haven't taken anything from your data somehow.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
I mean at the moment I just changed all my passwords,
I was like, Gmail, banking, everything, I'm just going to
change it all. And then I'm covering myself a little bit.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
I guess it's all you can do.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Yeah, two step for verification on all your banking apps
and things like that.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
I'm sure you're marrying a Nigerian prince, but that's separate
to me.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yea from it's really hard amount and he speaks so.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Beautifully on the phone.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Does he look like Asher, Yeah,