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CHICAGO (WLS) — Picture the bafflement of receiving a myriad of unexpected Amazon deliveries at your door.
An Elgin resident finds herself in this puzzling situation despite not having an Amazon account. Over a hundred packages have landed at her residence, and she’s eager for the deliveries to cease.
Seeking answers, she reached out to the ABC7 I-Team to unravel this perplexing scenario.
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This Elgin senior has accumulated a significant collection of boxes in her garage, remnants of the unsolicited parcels that just keep arriving. She expresses her frustration, stating it’s neither amusing nor endearing—she’s had enough. Despite notifying Amazon, the packages persist.
Since last summer, these deliveries have been arriving at the 79-year-old’s doorstep.
Pat Hurley, who has never created an Amazon account, is bewildered by the situation. Although the packages bear her address, they are labeled with a stranger’s name. The mysterious recipient is unknown in her neighborhood, leaving Pat feeling uneasy.
“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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