Thousands of Americans have received mysterious seed carriers in the last few months. Most are postmarked as coming from China and are often incorrectly labeled as another product. Some of them were potentially harmful to American agriculture, including harmful weeds, plant diseases, and pests.
U.S. Is working with China to find seed sources. This is not necessarily an attack – a key principle suggests that seeds are part of a “brushing” scam where sellers pay people by writing bogus reviews to order cheaper products and boost sales (“brushers”). Amazon maintained that delivery of seeds from its site has been delayed in actual orders due to the COVID-19 epidemic, but it is investigating possible links between its site, packages and possible brushing.
Amazon’s crackdown would not be so great if seed mailers were using other services. However, this reflects an increasingly active response to the company’s products and orders. He doesn’t want to be responsible for the problematic ship, and he’s obviously willing to lose potential sales rather than risk future events.
