I had an interesting experience recently. I ordered a cheap $20 multimeter from Amazon (which was highly rated on EEVblog), which was shipped from China. Interestingly, the Chinese seller shipped me a single little worthless plastic packet of heat-shrink remote control covers (which somewhat humorously I can imagine totally being a thing in Asia, heat-shrink-wrapping all the remotes in plastic, sort of like a couch in plastic). This was what the tracking number package was for, and so I <i>immediately</i> hit my bookmark to chat with an Amazon rep to report fraud. I went through all the motions, they refunded me the amount, I left a negative review. But then that night, I got an email from the seller saying "That was your free gift, the multimeter should be there soon" and indeed, the actual multimeter showed up <i>the next day</i>, albeit with another tracking number. The multimeter was definitely shipped from China the same as the garbage package (via epacket, the subsidized, dirt cheap, glacially slow shipping method), so the seller had to have shipped the stupid garbage package at around the same time as the actual product I ordered. Other reviews mentioned the exact same thing ("They sent me garbage, but I got the thing in another package").<p>I've spent time thinking about what kind of fraud they're committing, because it doesn't make sense to me why they would send the garbage package with the tracking number from my order -- which <i>screams</i> fraud -- but then <i>also</i> send me the <i>actual</i> thing I ordered. They're sending two packages to the same address, but it doesn't make sense why, since they're obviously not committing the most straightforward kind of fraud ("We shipped the item, you can see the tracking number", which incidentally, only works on eBay and not Amazon).
I wonder why we have the USPS Chinese subsidy? [1] Seems this makes the shipping fraud too easy as it is low cost.<p><i>It was a small epacket -- a special subsidized shipping option that the USPS offers Chinese merchants, effectively enabling them to ship a parcel from China to the U.S. for less than it costs to send that same parcel domestically</i><p><i>Due to the unbalanced pricing policies of the United Postal Union and subsidies from the U.S. Postal Service, it costs people in China virtually nothing to ship small packages to the U.S.</i><p>[1] <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/11/05/how-the-usps-epacket-gives-postal-subsidies-to-chinese-e-commerce-merchants-to-ship-to-the-usa-cheap/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/11/05/how-the-...</a>
It's the free shipping subsidy that's the underlying cause. It's the same reason we all receive enormous amounts of email spam (for me it's a couple hundred per day) - the cost of sending email is zero.<p>I bet the email spam problem could be solved at a stroke if senders were charged $.01 per email.
I find it funny the article implies this only happens across international borders, and would otherwise be policed and stopped if it only happened within the US. I receive unwanted junk mail daily and it isn't even addressed to me, but to 'Current Resident'.<p>The real solution is to allow residents to whitelist or blacklist mail. Or better yet tie mail to people and organizations, not places, and allow people to route whatever mail wherever they want.
Interesting. As per Washington Post in 2014 USPS was losing about $1 per every package shipped as ePacket from China. These spam shipments effectively are harming USPS.<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/the-postal-service-is-losing-millions-a-year-to-help-you-buy-cheap-stuff-from-china/?utm_term=.b5be91c00d80" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/...</a>
The epacket mailing is very common on low cost items you can find on ebay. I have seen it on items costing pennies and actually have won such an auction for less than a dollar and received what was listed. Now apparently the ebay buying has been safe for me and those I know who also have bought epacket delivered items, now they don't come fast but they all have arrived.<p>so which retailers are they skimming for addresses?
It is not only happening in the US, my SO in Spain received these a few months ago - unsolicited envelopes from China containing a single hair tie each (and once very cheap-looking sunglasses).
Wait, can't we do the same? I mean, make money exploiting legal loopholes at the cost of Chinese people and government? After all, the borders work two ways.