Americans from various states have been receiving unsolicited mails containing seeds coming from China that people claim are sent with malicious intent.
Invasive Chinese seeds?
In July, several social media users posted that they were receiving unsolicited emails, some of which were labeled as jewelry but contained seeds instead. According to Snopes, the Washington State Department of Agriculture released a warning that cautioned Americans about the deliveries.
Several other government agencies issued similar warnings to citizens including the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) that tells people to avoid planting the seeds as their origins are still unclear.
The warning also notes that several invasive species of plants cause severe damage and chaos to the environment and potentially displace or outright destroy native plants and insects.
One resident from Utah, Lori Culley, expressed her confusion and surprise when she received a package that was labeled as earrings only to find the seeds.
Culley, thinking it was only a mistake in the shipping address, posted on social media about her experience and was surprised to find she was not the only one who has had the same experiences and discovered there were at least 40 other people that received similar packages.
Utah imposes regulation that controls which plants and seeds are legal to be imported and sold in the state. After Culley received the delivery, a representative from the Utah Department of Agriculture collected the seeds to have them tested.
The DailyMail reports that the president of Better Business Bureau's Utah chapter, Jane Rupp, stated the packages might be a form of scam known as "brushing," an e-commerce fraud where companies attempt to boost their ratings by creating fake orders.
Despite her statement, Rapp noted that the incident with the seed packages was somewhat random as she has never heard the scam use seeds beforehand.
A new form to an old scam?
The scam is known to be used by disreputable sellers on sales sites, including Amazon, to build up a false reputation to attract their victims into falling for their fraud.
The CEO of ID Agent, Kevin Lancaster, said Amazon is continuously upgrading and developing its algorithm to detect fraudulent vendors and protect its consumers reliably.
The difficulty of finding some of the scammers lie in those that steadily build up their reputation through legitimate sales, acting as reputable and trustworthy sellers. Lancaster stated the scam could get the money of the buyers who are still waiting for their products while the scammers have already dashed off with their victims' hard-earned cash.
Commissioner Mike Strain said that as the nature of the seeds inside the package remains unknown, the agency is urging anyone who receives the mails they did not order to call the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry immediately.
The real intent behind the mailings remains uncertain as social media users speculated that it is an attempt at smuggling drugs. In contrast, others state the senders are trying to trick Americans into planting invasive species of plants.
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