Mysterious BBQ sauce deliveries point to 'impersonation' on Walmart site: 'It was non-stop!'
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- It started with mysterious boxes of BBQ sauce that have been appearing on a Chicago woman's doorstep for more than a month. She never ordered them. But, they kept coming. Sound familiar?
The shipping spree turned impersonation attempt reminded Nicole Nassif of 'Kay' -- the San Jose woman who was bombarded with Amazon packages for more than a year. Well, they're not alone. And as Kay and Nicole both discovered, the problem is not just isolated to Amazon, either.
VIDEO: 'It's been hell': Hundreds of unwanted Amazon packages shipped to SJ woman's home for over a year
"A friend of mine sent me an article that you had written about the Amazon boxes... reposted in the New York Times," said Chicago native Nicole Nassif. "Everybody in my world understood what a hassle this was... they were like maybe Stephanie can help you."
Nicole says she shared the same "hell" as Kay, except her trouble is with Walmart.
"I came home one day and there was a box at my front door that was addressed to my restaurant at my home address," she said, adding that wasn't entirely unusual.
Nicole opened the box to find two bottles of Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce inside. As a restaurant owner, she didn't think anything of it, at first. She thought it could be a promotion.
"But then more boxes started coming, and they always had two bottles of Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce in them," Nicole said. "And I didn't know what to do at that point, so I started calling the return addresses on the boxes."
That's when she got a hold of a woman named Debbie.
VIDEO: Car seat cover in mysterious shipping spree to SJ home no longer available online
"And then I said to her, where did you get my address?" Nicole asked.
Turns out Nicole's restaurant, Imee's Mediterranean Kitchen, was being impersonated on Walmart's version of Amazon, called Walmart Marketplace. Similar to Kay's situation, the fake account listed Nicole's home address on the return label and the website. So instead of car seat covers, Nicole was getting bombarded with barbecue sauce! Plus, some random packages of toilet bowl cleaner.
"There was a lot of confusion...I just was having a really hard time understanding how I got involved in this," Nicole said. "I'm having a hot flash right now!"
The hot flash not from the barbecue sauce-- but from Walmart's response, or lack thereof. Nicole says she first notified the company by calling several times on March 26. That was followed by dozens of emails and follow-up calls -- which she says were left on hold with Walmart customer service.
"How long?" asked 7 On Your Side's Stephanie Sierra.
"Oh, gosh. Honestly, it was a full-time job. I spent 60 hours at least," Nicole said.
Despite all that, she says the fake account nor her home address were taken down from Walmart's marketplace -- for more than five weeks. So like Kay's experience with Amazon, Nicole was left waiting. Meanwhile the packages kept coming -- or in Nicole's case, the sauce. Which may just seem like a tasty problem to have, but Nicole became more concerned about safety and the impact this fake account could have on the brand of her restaurant.
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Especially -- when she got this unwanted piece of mail.
"Oh my gosh! OK, I got a cease-and-desist letter from Ricola!" Nicole said. "Because Ricola, the candy, you know, Ricola? Apparently, this person sells Ricola on that site."
The Swiss company accused her of violating Ricola's intellectual property and "impermissibly distributing its products" on Walmart's platform -- when it wasn't even her!
"It was crazy. I mean, honestly, it was nuts. I was like, what in the hay is going on?" Nicole said.
7 On Your Side reached out to Walmart and the e-commerce giant told us they are offering Nicole a gift card for her trouble, adding: "Walmart takes the integrity of its Marketplace seriously, using multiple layers of verification and continuous monitoring to help ensure that only legitimate, trustworthy sellers are allowed on the platform. We have zero tolerance for inaccuracies and take swift action to remove noncompliant listings."
Except, Nicole says she never received any gift card -- adding Walmart has yet to call her back or respond to her repeated emails.
"Did you ask them what their definition of swift is?" Nicole asked Sierra, adding five weeks didn't seem swift enough to take down the fake account. "This is on brand for them not to respond."
7 On Your Side did ask Walmart about the specific dates and when the company was able to take down the fraudulent account, but the company didn't answer that question. The so-called swift action clearly didn't happen for Nicole and Kay. The question is, why? And, why them?
We asked experts at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. Eli Clemens, a policy analyst for the group, explains most return policies for overseas vendors selling on US marketplaces online have three options: a pre-paid international shipping label, a "no return" full refund, or listing a U.S. address for returns.
"That one listing a U.S. address opens up the most risk for fraud and exploitation of the consumer," said Clemens. "Which it sounds like deliberately happened in this case."
And it happened, in part, because listing a US address -- as opposed to offering a pre-paid international return label -- allows fraudulent vendors to avoid paying any cost up front in the event of a needed return. Plus, overseas sellers can easily lie about the address, as seen with the Chinese online seller advertising car seat covers. Clemens says bad actor vendors will often scrape online public databases for addresses, which explains how Nassif and Kay's were likely chosen at random -- becoming as they call it the "not so lucky ones." In order to reduce risk, you can pay for data removal services online, but it's unlikely to prevent it permanently.
"Unfortunately, I think U.S. consumers are just going to be the victims in this, and there's not a lot of options for recourse," Clemens said. "Online marketplaces will respond to this media attention, I think that can amplify that. And that's definitely what's happening in this case."
Leaving Nassif and Kay -- and some of her neighbors, who are so fed up they won't even answer the door -- just deterring deliveries with "no return" signs...
Just hoping they're not "picked" again.
Take a look at more stories and videos by 7 On Your Side.
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