No evidence toxic masks are being sent in the mail, but watch out for ‘brushing’ scam

In the fall of 2020 and early this year, there were scattered reports of Americans receiving unsolicited packages from Amazon in the mail, containing face masks, seeds, or other products from China.

A new social media post indicates it is still happening, though this one also said the recipient may have received face masks laced with a toxic substance.

A Facebook post says, "Beware everyone. There’s a scam going on. I received a package yesterday and it was something I didn’t order. I called Amazon and they said the tracking number was invalid. They also said to throw it immediately in the garbage. They said there’s a scam going on where people lace these masks with something toxic. Scary what this world is coming to."

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

The post is from a user who lists Plattsburgh, N.Y., as the location on their profile. Police there told PolitiFact on Nov. 11 that they had not received any reports of unsolicited packages of masks laced with a toxic substance.

In 2020, reports cropped up in local media across the U.S. about people receiving unsolicited packages containing face masks or other items from China. (You can find some here, here, here and here.) 

It was likely part of what the Better Business Bureau calls a "brushing" scam, which is when sellers send unsolicited items to addresses they find online, so they can later post fake positive reviews on Amazon to improve their ratings, and ultimately, their sales.

A spokesperson for the Better Business Bureau said in an email to PolitiFact on Nov. 10 that it has not received any ScamTracker reports recently regarding toxic masks. 

The FBI’s website does not list any current consumer alerts about unsolicited packages or toxic masks.

Snopes fact-checkers wrote in September that a viral claim from 2020 about unsolicited masks with a chemical irritant had been recirculating on social media. The claim of an irritant in the masks in that 2020 post was unverified, Snopes said.

We found no recent news reports in the U.S. of unsolicited masks coming from China. However, an October news report out of Britain suggested unsolicited packages had become a growing problem there. The story, which was also referenced in The Guardian, cited specific incidents that happened in October and December of 2020 and May of this year.

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Amazon did not return a request for comment, but its customer service page urges users to report unsolicited packages and said that it "investigates reports of "brushing" and will take action on bad actors that violate our policies." 

A search of Amazon’s customer service Twitter account @AmazonHelp shows responses to several recent customer reports of unsolicited packages.

The Federal Trade Commission wrote about unsolicited packages in 2020 and said recipients do not have to pay for or return unsolicited packages, but they should consider changing their password for the site it was sent from.

If you have safety concerns about the package, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service suggests calling the police or following instructions on its suspicious-mail page.

A Facebook post claimed that there is a scam going around where people are receiving unsolicited packages of masks and that Amazon said the masks may be laced with a toxic substance.

We can find no evidence of toxic masks being sent or Amazon warning of it. Local police told us such an event wasn’t anything they had heard of either. 

We rate this claim False.