Hoaxes and Scams

At my workplace a few months ago, we experienced a situation that reminded me just how creative and unsettling modern scams can be. One morning, my boss, an older woman, received a small package from a delivery service none of us recognized. The label didn’t match any company we normally work with, and the website printed on it looked unfamiliar and slightly “off.” At first, we thought it might simply be a mistaken delivery. But upon further examination we found it to be extremely offputing
What really raised a red flag was that my boss had never ordered anything from this company. The return address was to a random house, the tracking number didn’t work on any major shipping website, and the company name didn’t show up in a normal Google search unless we added the word “scam.” That was enough for us to stop everything. After confirming that none of our coworkers were expecting the package, we filed an internal report and followed workplace protocol by disposing of it safely.
Looking back, the purpose of this kind of scam seems pretty clear. Many fraudulent companies send random, unrequested packages as part of “brushing scams,” which help them create fake customer accounts, fake tracking numbers, or false reviews. Others attempt to get the recipient to contact them, hoping to collect personal information or convince them to pay for something they never ordered. Some even contain harmful items meant to create a sense of urgency or fear.
There were several ways we could tell the package wasn’t legitimate, and these steps apply to almost any suspicious digital or physical situation. First, the company had an unprofessional-looking website with no real contact information and seemed to be made entirely by AI. Second, the shipping label contained inconsistencies, odd formatting, misspellings, and no official tracking system behind it. Finally, nothing about the delivery matched my boss’s actual online activity.