"What are all these packages doing here?!" said a very confused San Jose woman, who goes by "Kay."
Kay's garage suddenly became a return shipping hub for hundreds of random packages from a remote village in China. Unbeknownst to her, a Chinese online seller advertising car seat covers listed Kay's home address on the return label -- which left her bombarded with these deliveries for more than a year.
The question is, how did this even happen? And why didn't the tech giant catch it? 7 On Your Side spoke to former Amazon employees who say they left the e-commerce giant, frustrated at how these problems are addressed. At their request, we kept their identities anonymous out of fear of retaliation. Note: Their voices are re-recorded in another voice.
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"Whoever it is in China that built this brand, likely partnered with someone in the U.S. or paid them to open an account and then change the address after the fact. We would see that all the time," said one of the former employees.
Sources with extensive knowledge of Amazon's marketplace policies say international sellers are incentivized to list U.S. addresses because the tech giant has fewer verification requirements for in-country sellers as compared to overseas sellers. And they say the problem is there's little oversight to fix it.
"I could go on for hours, having worked at Amazon, and then working on it for a lot of different brands. But, they tend to apply blanket policies. And then there's little follow up. So you're not supposed to be able to change your address, but it's pretty simple to do," the source said.
In order to sell on Amazon, you either have to sign up as an individual or a business. Sources familiar with the tech giant's verification team say it's likely the Chinese online seller Kay is dealing with signed up as an individual because they say it's the easiest way to get on the platform -- and the easiest way to change an address.
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"As an individual, if you change your address, you need to submit a document. Whereas, if you're a business, you need to submit lots of documentation. And that documentation can be easily fact-checked," said a former Amazon employee with insight into the company's operations.
Amazon told 7 On Your Side it uses advanced technology and expert human reviewers to verify the identities of potential sellers.
"When prospective sellers apply to sell in Amazon's store, they are required to provide a form of government-issued photo IDs, along with other information about their business. We employ advanced identity detection methods like document forgery detection, image and video verification, and other technologies to quickly confirm the authenticity of government-issued IDs and whether they match the individual applying to sell in our store," an Amazon spokesperson told us in a statement.
The company added it also tracks behavior signals and any connections to previously-detected bad actors to prevent risks. But that didn't appear to happen in Kay's case, as 40% of the online seller's reviews -- many of which report the return and refund issue -- date back more than a year ago. Not to mention Kay's repeated attempts to notify the company over the past year.
"Not doing anything and just ignoring people dealing with this is not OK," Kay said.
Amazon offers customer service agents via live chat or over the phone -- but like Kay experienced, that doesn't always work. So, what is the company doing to ensure this doesn't happen to you or the hundreds of millions of other daily active Amazon users?
The e-commerce giant told 7 On Your Side: "After we allow sellers to sell in our store, we continue to monitor their accounts and account behaviors for new risks. We are constantly innovating in this space to stay ahead of bad actors and their attempts to circumvent our controls."
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Yet unfortunately for Kay, and the other one-star reviews made about this seller, that didn't appear to happen, either.
7 On Your Side tracked down the address of the company selling these car seat covers -- and found it's headquartered out of an apartment in a village off the northern bank of the Yellow River. And more importantly, we learned it's not even a registered business on China's corporate registry.
"That raises a lot of red flags," said Eli Clemens, a policy analyst with a tech think tank based in Washington D.C. "Where I think U.S. policy can step in, is improve their traceability of these addresses and business information."
Clemens says U.S. Customs and Border Protection has the authority to fact check this. But because e-commerce is booming, the agency is lagging behind at enforcing the laws that impact U.S. consumers and businesses. 7 On Your Side reached out to the agency for further comment, but didn't hear back.
"Really, they should try to automate this process. They should take this information, which is mandated to be published on online marketplaces through the Informed Consumers Act, and try to identify the business address and see if it's listed in China's corporate registry databases," Clemens said. "If it's not, then that's a red flag. And maybe these goods won't even make it to the U.S. in the first place."
Unlike the United States, Clemens says China vigorously protects their consumers domestically from e-commerce fraud. According to a 2016 court case, China enacted a seven-day return window mandate to protect Chinese consumers from this type of fraud overseas. Protections Kay wishes we would have here at home.
"They need to be vigilant in making sure that their sellers are actually adhering to their rules," Kay told 7 On Your Side.
Kay wouldn't be standing in a pile of boxes if Amazon flagged the Chinese seller's account during the post-verification process. As sources explain, every time you register a new store, Amazon does a two-to-three-day verification process that's subject to checks. If there's any questions about it, staff will require a video meeting where the individual will be required to hold up a passport. 7 On Your Side asked Amazon if this "secondary check" happened with Kay's case, but the tech giant told us there was no additional information to share.
"However, the people they have monitoring that (video ID verification), doing the process, are offshore resources -- you know, low paid. So, it may not be as legitimate as you would want," a former Amazon employee told us.
The tech giant also had no further comment to the allegation about its "off-shore resources," however the company did report initially it's using advanced technology and expert human reviewers.
7 On Your Side also asked Amazon if the company has a direct process for consumers to report these types of problems and if there's a team designated to ensure action is taken to resolve it. The company re-assured the customer service live chat or phone service will route inquiries to the appropriate team. In the meantime, the online seller's car seat covers have since been taken down from Amazon's site. Also, Amazon removed all the boxes from Kay's property, following news inquiries from 7 On Your Side.
But if you ask former employees, addressing the potential risk to consumers is a simple fix. Don't allow overseas sellers to change an address once their account is approved -- unless they go through a second verification.
A critical step, given Amazon has about 2 million active sellers in its marketplace worldwide -- with some reports suggesting a majority of them are operating overseas.
"I hope they do something about it," said former Amazon employees who have insight into current verification operations. "Right now, it's not disrupting Amazon's business or their bottom line... so I don't think it's a huge priority. But it should be."
To protect consumers, like Kay. Because, as she taught us, getting caught in the middle of all this became more than just a hassle.
"It's been hell!" she said.
Take a look at more stories and videos by 7 On Your Side.
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