Busan man receives 30 unsolicited packages from AliExpress

Busan police are investigating over 30 unsolicited deliveries a man says he received from AliExpress.

Packages unrelated to the story are loaded onto a delivery truck in Seoul. [NEWS1]

Busan police are investigating a case wherein a man received around 30 deliveries from AliExpress that he'd never ordered.

The Busan Nambu Police Station said Thursday said they were looking into a report filed by a man in his 30s who said that he “kept receiving packages that weren't ordered.”

The man said he'd received around 30 packages, marked with Chinese e-commerce platform AliExpress as their sender, over the six months since December of last year.

The packages included various arbitrary items including fabric scraps, dresses and trash. Some were empty.

Packages inscribed with the man’s name and phone number were even sent to the elementary school and office near his home.

The man claims that the deliveries started arriving after he purchased items from AliExpress.

The Busan citizen filed a complaint to AliExpress’s Korean customer service but was told that only headquarters could fix the problem. He then deactivated his AliExpress account and reported his case to the police.

“We are currently in the prebooking stage of the investigation. We have asked AliExpress to check information about the customer who placed the order,” an official from the Busan Nambu Police Station said.

Unsolicited packages from overseas were sent nationwide in a similar fashion in July last year. The police evaluated the deliveries as brushing scams and asked Chinese police for cooperation in their investigation.

A brushing scam involves sellers on e-commerce platforms randomly sending packages to inflate their sales numbers.

BY KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]