Quick answer. Brushing is when someone ships cheap, unordered items to real people so the shipment looks like a verified sale, then uses that “sale” to post fake reviews and push a product up the rankings. The FTC and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service both describe it as a scam aimed at boosting sales through fake reviews. On Amazon it is review manipulation and sales rank manipulation, both prohibited by Amazon’s policies and both grounds for ending selling privileges. A seller can be implicated without placing a single fake order, because an agency, a “launch” service or a competitor can do it in the seller’s name. If you see sudden orders and glowing reviews you cannot explain, document them, report them through Report Abuse, end any service involved, and keep a clean evidence file in case Amazon asks.

Most sellers know brushing from the consumer side, as a mystery package nobody ordered. For a seller it is more dangerous. The same pattern can put a review manipulation flag on a seller account, whoever pressed the button.

Sometimes sudden success is the warning sign. A listing jumps in sales with no ad change and a run of five star reviews lands in a week. We cover what brushing is, why it puts a seller account at risk, how someone else can drag you into it, how to spot it in your own data, how to report it, and what evidence to have ready if Amazon raises a review manipulation concern. This is educational information, not legal advice.

What brushing is, according to the FTC and postal inspectors

Start with the official description, because Amazon reviewers and regulators both work from it. The Federal Trade Commission’s consumer alert from August 2026 says an unexpected package “could be a brushing scam where a scammer uses your name to leave a fake review for that package you didn’t order.” The FTC explains that scammers send the item to get validation of delivery, then use the recipient’s name to place fake reviews online that “brush up” their sales. An earlier FTC alert from January 2025 describes the same scheme with fake “luxury” items such as rings, beauty products and Bluetooth speakers, and notes that scammers or sellers of knock-off merchandise find addresses or other personal information online.

The United States Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the Postal Service, describes it the same way. Its brushing scam page says the recipient gets parcels they did not order, often with no return address or with a retailer’s address, usually sent by a third-party seller who found the address online. The aim, in the Postal Inspection Service’s words, is to make the recipient look like a verified buyer who has written positive reviews, which helps “fraudulently boost or inflate the products’ ratings and sales numbers.” The same page says this kind of unsolicited merchandise is often part of a brushing scam, “which is illegal in the U.S. and many other countries.”

The mechanics in plain terms

Brushing has four parts. There is a product someone wants to promote. There is a buyer account the schemer controls, which places the order. There is a real address belonging to someone who never asked for anything, which receives the item and makes the delivery look genuine. And there is a review, posted by the controlled account, that rides on the appearance of a verified purchase. The cheap item in the box is often not even the product being reviewed. It only has to produce a delivery scan.

The newer twist, a QR code in the box

Both the FTC and the Postal Inspection Service warn about packages containing a card with a QR code that claims to reveal the sender. The FTC says scanning could lead to a phishing site built to steal card numbers or passwords, and the Postal Inspection Service calls this “quishing.” A customer who finds your brand name beside such a card may blame your store for something you never did.

The brushing chain. Every step leaves a record, and the last step lands on a listing that belongs to a seller.

Why brushing is a seller account risk on Amazon

Amazon needs no policy named “brushing” to act. Brushing combines two things Amazon already prohibits.

It is review manipulation

Amazon’s Customer product reviews policies list prohibited conduct, including a seller posting a review of their own product, a seller using a customer account to write or change a review, and a seller paying a third party or using services that sell customer reviews. Brushing does exactly this, because a controlled account buys the product and writes the review. The Selling policies and seller code of conduct says every seller must “not attempt to influence customers’ ratings, feedback, and reviews,” and bans paying for or offering incentives for reviews and reviewing your own or a competitor’s products.

Amazon calls its stance on review violations zero tolerance. The reviews policy says that when Amazon detects attempts to manipulate customer reviews, it may immediately and permanently withdraw selling privileges and withhold funds, remove all the product’s reviews and block future ones, and permanently delist the product. It may also take legal action, including referral to civil and criminal enforcement authorities, and publicly disclose the seller’s name and related information.

It is also sales rank manipulation

The code of conduct names “manipulating sales rank (such as by accepting non-authentic orders or orders that you have paid for, or refunded externally or orders that you discounted externally)” as an unfair activity. That sentence describes brushing from the order side. Orders placed by controlled accounts, paid for by the seller or a service, or quietly refunded off Amazon drive the scheme. Even if no review is ever posted, the orders can be a violation on their own, because they create a false picture of demand.

The law has caught up

The FTC’s Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, makes it an unfair or deceptive practice for a business to write, create or sell a consumer review that misrepresents that the reviewer exists or used the product, or to buy reviews it knew or should have known were fake. A brushing review fits that description. For the review side in depth, read our guide on fake reviews and what Amazon does about them.

How a seller ends up implicated by someone else

The hardest part of a brushing case is that the seller on the listing is not always the one running the scheme. Amazon’s reviews policy rules out “I did not know” in advance. It says sellers should educate business partners, employees and third-party partners about the review rules, and that “any infractions by your business partners, employees, or third party agencies will result in enforcement actions, even if it happened without your knowledge or consent.” The code of conduct says the same thing in one line. Allowing other people to act on your behalf in a way that violates Amazon’s policies is itself an unfair activity.

Three different situations can look identical from Amazon’s side, and each needs a different response.

Six stations a brushing scheme passes before it reaches a listing. Tap each one to see who acts there and what it means for your answer to Amazon.

The agency trap

The most common route into a brushing problem is a service selling “launch velocity” or “ranking campaigns.” The pitch talks about search placement or units moved in week one, not reviews. Behind it may be controlled accounts buying the product and refunds paid off Amazon. The code of conduct also prohibits “incentivizing customers’ searches to appear as organic behavior.” If a vendor will not explain in writing how it moves units, assume the answer is one you cannot defend.

When your brand is on someone else’s box

Sometimes a stranger receives an unordered package with your product inside and tells Amazon, as the FTC advises. If those buyers and addresses are not in your order records, that is your evidence the shipment did not come from your account. If other sellers share your listing, the box may have come from their inventory, so know who sells on your ASINs. Our guide to listing hijacking covers how to watch them.

Three objects that carry the marks of a brushing scheme. Open each one to see what sets it off, what you can prove and what is only inferred.

How to spot suspicious order patterns in Seller Central

Amazon does not publish the signals its detection uses or the threshold that turns a busy week into manipulation. You can still read your records the way a reviewer would. No single signal below proves brushing. Together they tell you when to start documenting.

Order level signals

A spike on one ASIN with no cause. Orders jump on a single product while advertising spend, price, coupons and seasonality are unchanged.
Uniform orders. Many orders of the same quantity, same variation and similar timing, often in the early hours or in tight clusters.
Addresses that do not fit. For merchant fulfilled orders, ship-to addresses scattered across regions you never sell into, or several orders going to one address under different names.
Refund behavior. Orders refunded shortly after delivery with no return, or buyers who mention a payment or reimbursement you never made.
Buyer messages that make no sense. A customer writing to ask why they received your product when they never ordered it, or asking who sent it.

Review level signals

Reviews arriving faster than sales justify. A burst of reviews within days of the order spike, when your normal ratio of reviews to orders is much lower.
Uniform praise. Short, generic five star reviews that could describe any product, or reviews that describe features your product does not have.
Reviewers with no history. Public profiles with few or no other reviews, or a history of reviewing unrelated products in bursts.

A worked example

Here is a hypothetical. A seller lists a silicone kitchen utensil set and normally sells about 15 units a day, with roughly 1 review for every 60 orders. In one week, daily orders jump to 70 with no ad change. Forty of the extra orders are a quantity of one, placed between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. Within ten days, 22 new five star reviews appear, most under 20 words, several praising a “bamboo handle” the product does not have. Three customers message to ask why they received a package they did not order.

Each fact alone could be noise. Together they show orders that do not behave like customers and reviews that do not describe the product. Reporting, documenting and checking every vendor start that day.

Five Seller Central screens where brushing leaves marks. Step through each one to see the signal and what to do the day you find it.

Where to verify each signal

Before you report anything or answer Amazon, confirm what you are seeing. You want a record you can hand to a reviewer, not a hunch.

Question	Where to check	What to look for
Did orders spike without a business reason?	Your order list in Seller Central, compared with your advertising and promotions history for the same dates	A jump on one ASIN while ad spend, price and coupons stayed flat
Do the orders look like real customers?	Order details for the spike period	Identical quantities, clustered timestamps, repeated or scattered ship-to addresses on merchant fulfilled orders
Were reviews requested through approved channels only?	Your Request a Review usage and Buyer-Seller Messaging history	Reviews arriving far faster than your requests could explain
Are the reviews genuine?	The product detail page reviews and reviewer public profiles	Generic praise, wrong product details, reviewers with no history
Is anyone else selling on the ASIN?	The offer listing on the detail page	Unknown sellers who appeared around the same time as the spike
Has Amazon flagged anything?	Account Health dashboard and Performance Notifications	Any review, communication or code of conduct item, with its date
Did a vendor touch the account or listing?	The list of users with access to your account, plus contracts, invoices and emails with agencies	Any service promising rank, velocity or reviews, and who had access

How to report brushing and suspicious reviews

Use the right reporting route so there is a record with a case number. Amazon says it cannot disclose investigation results for privacy reasons, and a report guarantees nothing. A dated report filed before any notice still shows you raised the problem yourself.

Five items in a brushing response queue, each with its own reporting route. Open one to see where it goes and what to attach.

What to tell a customer who received an unordered package

If a customer messages you about a package they did not order, answer only through Buyer-Seller Messaging, as the code of conduct requires. Never ask them to change or remove a review or offer anything for one. You can point them to the FTC’s advice, which is to change passwords on online shopping accounts, message the marketplace so it can investigate the seller, check their credit at AnnualCreditReport.com, and report brushing at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. The FTC and the Postal Inspection Service both say recipients do not have to pay for or return unordered merchandise.

Myths sellers believe about brushing

Because the products are real and the boxes ship, many sellers think brushing is a grey zone. It is a violation.

Four beliefs sellers hold about brushing, set against what Amazon’s policy says. Compare each line to see which paper protects you and which proves the case.

What to document if Amazon raises review manipulation concerns

In a review manipulation case the reviewer judges what happened and whether the seller tells the truth about it. Every claim must be exactly true and every document real. Overstated innocence, or a remediation that claims more than was done, confirms the concern.

Establish the truth before choosing a position

Start with diagnosis, not writing. Work out whether the business did it, a service you hired did it, or someone did it to you. Ask everyone with account access and every vendor about review services, launch or ranking campaigns and connected reviewers, then identify the specific orders and reviews. If involvement was real, even unknowing, own it and show the cleanup. If you were targeted, show that the pattern is not yours. Picking the wrong position is the most common way these cases fail.

The evidence file

Document	Why it matters	Standard it must meet
The notice and any case IDs	Fixes exactly what Amazon cited and when	Exact wording, saved as received
Order export for the flagged period	Shows the pattern and which orders are involved	Unedited, covering the full period, with order IDs
Review screenshots with dates	Shows what the reviews said before any removal	Dated captures, reviewer names visible
Vendor and agency records	Shows what any service did and when it stopped	Contracts, invoices, campaign reports and the written termination
Inserts and Buyer-Seller Messaging history	Shows your own review requests were neutral	Current insert copy and message templates as used
Report Abuse and review report log	Shows you reported the pattern yourself	Dates, routes and report IDs
Written review policy and access list	Shows the control that prevents recurrence	Named owner, effective date, who has account access

List only documents you can produce, and never create, alter or “tidy up” a record. If a vendor refuses to hand over its records, say so plainly and attach your request and their refusal. An honest gap is survivable. An altered document is not.

A readiness check for an Amazon review manipulation file. Toggle the checks you have in place to see what is still missing before you write.

Orders or reviews on your listing you cannot explain?

Send us the case and we will help you establish what happened before you answer Amazon.

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Writing the plan of action for a brushing case

If Amazon deactivates the account or removes listings, its appeal page says to go to Account Health, click Reactivate your account, and follow the instructions, which may include a questionnaire, acknowledging a violation, a quiz or supporting documents. The same page says to expect a reply to an appeal within two days and to use View Appeal in Account Health if Amazon asks for more information. Those are Amazon’s stated steps, not a promise of any outcome. Our guide to writing a plan of action that gets read covers the general structure. In a brushing case, each part has a specific job.

Root cause

Name the specific cause, such as the agency campaign that placed paid orders, the staff member who used a personal account, or the burst of planted reviews from a given date. “We made a mistake” reads as no answer. Do not blame shoppers, Amazon’s systems or unnamed competitors.

Corrective actions already taken

List what you have already done, with dates and numbers. Give the date the vendor contract ended, the number of orders and reviews identified, the review reports filed, the Report Abuse case submitted and the users removed from the account. Corrective actions are finished actions, not intentions.

Preventive controls

Describe permanent controls tied to the exact failure. Examples are a written policy banning any review, ranking or launch service and any off-Amazon refund tied to orders, a named owner who approves every marketing vendor and every insert or message template, a regular check of order and review patterns, and a restricted list of who can access the account. Give each control an owner and a start date.

A posture example for a targeted seller

Here is a hypothetical, anonymized framing for a seller who was targeted. “We did not create, solicit or incentivize the flagged reviews and we do not use any review, ranking or launch service. The reviews appeared in a burst between [dates] that is inconsistent with our review history [attached]. We reported them through the review Report link and Report Abuse on [date, report ID]. We ask Amazon to examine their source, and we will provide anything that helps confirm we had no part in them.” It is confident without being indignant, and it gives the reviewer something to check.

Common mistakes that turn a brushing problem into a suspension

Waiting for Amazon to notice. A seller who saw the spike, said nothing and reported nothing has no record of good faith when the notice arrives.
Blaming the agency and stopping there. Amazon’s policy holds you responsible for partners, so the answer must include your own vetting failure and the control that fixes it.
Confessing to something you did not do. An apology for manipulation you did not commit gives Amazon an admission and still leaves the real source unexplained.
Denying what the data shows. If paid orders went through your listing, a flat denial is the most damaging answer you can give.
Contacting reviewers or buyers off Amazon. This breaks the communication rules and looks like an attempt to influence reviews.

A routine that keeps you out of brushing trouble

The best protection is a short routine that also produces the records you would need later.

Every week

Compare daily orders per ASIN against advertising, pricing and promotions. Any spike without a cause gets a note and a look at the order details.
Read new reviews on your top products. Report any that look fake through the Report link and log them.
Read buyer messages for anyone saying they received a product they did not order.

Every month

Review who has access to Seller Central and remove anyone who no longer needs it.
Check who else is selling on your ASINs.
Check Account Health and Performance Notifications for any review, communication or code of conduct item.

Before hiring any marketing vendor

Ask in writing how the vendor drives sales and reviews. Refuse any service that places orders, refunds buyers off Amazon, or ties anything to a review.
Put Amazon’s review and communication rules in the contract and keep a copy of the vendor’s answers.
Use Amazon’s own review tools, the Request a Review button and, where available, Amazon Vine. Our article on whether you can buy Amazon reviews explains why paid shortcuts fail.

If your account is already under review for review manipulation, the work is diagnosis and evidence first, which is what our Amazon suspension service is built around.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a brushing scam on Amazon?

It is a scheme where someone ships unordered items to real addresses so the orders look like verified purchases, then posts fake reviews to inflate a product’s rating and sales. The FTC and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service both describe it this way.

Can my seller account be suspended for brushing I did not do?

It can be flagged, because Amazon says infractions by business partners and third-party agencies result in enforcement even without the seller’s knowledge. If someone targeted you, your defense is evidence that the pattern is not yours and that you reported it.

Is brushing illegal?

The Postal Inspection Service says brushing scams are illegal in the U.S., and the FTC’s rule at 16 CFR Part 465 prohibits businesses from creating or buying fake consumer reviews. This is educational information, not legal advice.

How do I report suspicious reviews on my listing?

Use the “Report” link under each review, then file a Report Abuse report with the ASIN, order IDs and a short explanation tied to the policy. Keep the dates and IDs in a log.

A customer says they got my product without ordering it. What should I say?

Reply only through Buyer-Seller Messaging, do not mention reviews, and point them to the FTC’s advice. That means changing shopping account passwords, telling the marketplace, checking their credit and reporting at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Does a customer have to return or pay for an unordered package?

No. The FTC and the Postal Inspection Service both say recipients do not have to pay for or return merchandise they did not order.

Get Help With a Brushing or Review Manipulation Case

If your listing shows orders or reviews you cannot explain, or Amazon has already raised a review manipulation concern, start by establishing what happened. You can submit your case for review, or book a consultation to talk through the evidence before you respond.

This article is general educational information about Amazon policies and public guidance from U.S. agencies. It is not legal advice and does not guarantee any outcome. Amazon’s policies change, so check the current Seller Central pages before acting.

You can also see all our marketplace suspension services.

How Amazon Sellers Get Implicated in Brushing Scams