Ordered a bag that I liked the look of on Amazon from a seller named Lianghyan. What came of it was surprising. The bag is a LoKori brand Travel Waterproof Weekender in blue.
I was a little skeptical as there were no reviews at all. Red Flag. So I waited a week to order it as I couldn't find something better. Unfortunately I only looked at the pictures on the phone; once on a PC screen I could see there was a blurred logo from a different brand on the bag. Red Flag.
Of course there was a nearly immediate "shipment" logged in Amazon. The shipper site is YunExpress. If the Tracking ID from Amazon is entered there, it shows as "Not Found". Red Flag.
About a week later a bag shows up at the door. This is a cheap bag. Red Flag. Wrong brand. Bowei. Wrong color. Grey. Missing all features I was expecting.
The shipping label of the cheap bag has some information. The delivery company is SwiftX-Express, commonly used by brushing scams. The return address is an infamous brushing scam house in Thousand Oaks, California. Red Flag. The tracking number shows no originating selling company, and shipped on the same date as the Amazon order date. There is an order number with a date embedded in it, and it is the same date as the Amazon order date.
Another two weeks later, I got a demand letter email from Australia, to an email address NOT associated with my Amazon account. The demand letter was dated the date of the Amazon order date. There was no identification of the debtor. Red Flag. The amount of the demand letter was over $2000.
Five weeks later, Amazon thinks the package is lost. It is never coming.
At this point, I was convinced this was a scam. Especially since everything was linked to the order date.
Reported as a scam to Amazon four different ways.
Forwarded the demand letter with an explanation that they used my information to find a linked account and attempt to get payment outside of Amazon. Reported the seller as a scammer, detailing everything above. Used the Amazon scam reporting option and provided the information above. Contacted Amazon Customer Support under the A-Z clause, and got a refund of the purchase. I have a case number for the scam report, and money has been refunded.
Reported to the FTC.
Included the Thousand Oaks address, trying to get it shut down. Submitted everything above, including the information linking and extortion.
The collections agency is real! So I reported this to them as fraud. This got a little sticky...
This same agency sent out demand letters three years ago to every email address that had the same name (first middle and last) as mine. I had seen these messages, but ignored them as I had never been to Australia and the messages looked like a spray out to a bunch of email addresses.
The person they were trying to contact owed them just over $2000 for legal representation fees. They responded with the demand to pay the legal fees, which I declined as there is a mistaken identity.
They insisted.