CHICAGO (WLS) — Imagine receiving dozens of mysterious Amazon packages at your doorstep.
A woman in Elgin says she didn’t order anything from Amazon, and she doesn’t even have an account, yet more than 100 packages have shown up at her home, and she wants it to stop.
The woman called the ABC7 I-Team to solve the mystery.
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The senior in Elgin said the many packages that remain in her garage are just some of what she has received at her doorstep. She said it’s not funny, it’s not cute and she is fed up. She reported it to Amazon, but she says the packages keep on coming.
They’ve been showing up since last summer. The Amazon packages were delivered to the 79-year-old woman’s home.
Pat Hurley says she’s never even had an Amazon account before. The labels have her address, but someone else’s name. No one in the neighborhood has heard of the person, which has left the senior feeling unsettled.
“If somebody’s going to show up, I’m disabled, alone in the house,” Hurley said. “And all this is happening. I’m getting a little nervous. You know, I mean, you don’t know what’s going on in this world.”
Her son says this has got to stop. He says they first reported the mysterious packages to amazon last year, and they were told to just keep them. But they kept coming, sometimes 20 a day.
“It became every other day we were coming over here with a dolly, just moving off the front porch again, back into the garage,” he said.
Some the packages weigh over 60 pounds.
“She has a hard time moving, walking,” he said. “She’s weak. She can’t lift, you know, much of anything. It takes her a hard time to even get out of bed in the morning.”
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He says it appears to be art supplies. They tried donating to local schools and charity, but they won’t accept it due to safety concerns. So, they called Amazon again.
“Their next response was to get the shipping codes off of each and every box file claim for each one, and then for us to take it to Amazon to return,” he said.
They felt that wasn’t their responsibility, so they called the I-Team for help.
“We didn’t know where else to go, what else to do,” Pat Hurley said. “So we’ve seen you help other people tell it to you. I didn’t know what i was going to do.”
ABC7 reached out to Amazon to see if this might be part of a “brushing scam.” That’s when a third-party seller sends unsolicited items to people who did not order them. The goal is to create a fake “verified buyer” account using a person’s address to post fake, positive five-star reviews, boosting their product ranking.
Amazon wouldn’t say if this was a brushing scam, but a spokesperson said in a statement, “We’ve reached out and apologized to Brian and his mother for this experience. We’re investigating and working toward a long-term resolution to prevent this from happening again.”
The woman and her son said after the I-Team got involved, an Amazon driver came by to pick up the packages right before ABC7 arrived, but left because he didn’t want to be on camera.
The family believe the case of the mysterious packages-will be resolved soon.
Amazon told the ABC7 I-Team they are in touch with a senior and they will be arranging another time to pick all of these packages up.
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