Greg's Corner

Brushing scam is sending out PPE

Brushing scams have been grabbing a lot of headlines lately due to the seeds sent to Americans from overseas. Again, if you’re unfamiliar with brushing scams, it’s when scammers send products to people unsolicited. The scammers do this to use you as a verified purchase to post fake reviews to their product page on platforms like Amazon. Often, these scammers have a stake in the product being sold. Brushing scams tend to be perpetrated by overseas scammers.

As we mentioned, the most infamous brushing scam recently involved an overseas company sending an untold number of seed packages to people all over the country. Now, the Attorney General of Kentucky and the U.S. Attorney’s office is warning of a new brushing scam that involves personal protection equipment, or as it’s better known, PPE. These are the masks, gloves, and face shields used to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Many residents of the Bluegrass State have said that they’ve received unsolicited packages of PPE from companies with overseas addresses. When a scam like this hits one state, it’s usually not long before it starts hitting others. It is recommended that if you receive one of these packages to not use any of the PPE contained inside as the quality of the items can not be verified.

While you are within your legal rights to keep anything that you didn’t actually order there are pitfalls to being involved in a brushing scam. The scammers could have gotten your information from a previous data breach somewhere online. That means that at least one of your online accounts may have been compromised but if you use the same password for multiple accounts, more could be compromised. It’s recommended that if you’ve been sent items from a brushing scam that you change the passwords on your online accounts and you should use different passwords for each account. A password manager is recommended to assist you with that. Also, you should keep an eye on your credit as brushing scammers could potentially have your financial information as well. You should also check your accounts on retailers like Amazon to make sure that purchases or reviews have not been made in your name.