Page 11 - IAV Digital Magazine #569

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Woman Received 150 Soft Drinks Delivered Over The Course of 3 Days For No Reason
By Katie Mather
An Australian woman’s TikTok serie s has lured in internet sleuths to figure out why she’s been receiving numerous bags of Powerade, Gatorade and other various
soft drinks without ordering them.
Sydney resident @carismaraffs intro- duced the mystery on April 22 with a video showing the 31 bags of soft drinks that had been delivered to her house over the course of two days. According to her, the bags held 125 bottles, and each delivery had
the same amount of beverages.
The deliveries contin- ued up until 7 p.m. The following day — the third day of the deliveries — there were fewer drop-offs, but the drinks changed.
“This time, it was four quantities of Coke, Coke Zero, Fanta and Mount Franklin bot- tles,” @carismaraffs explained. Mount Franklin is an Australian spring water brand. “I’m still not sure where they’re coming from and how they’re get- ting here, but they just keep turning up
at my door, and now there’s not even a doorbell. They just keep leaving them.”
Even the delivery people thought it was strange she kept receiving bags of dif- ferent beverages despite her claiming she wasn’t placing the orders herself. Commenters tried to get a closer look at the bags, with one person suggesting they looked like they might be from Coles Express, an Australian chain of convenience stores.
In total, by the end of three days, @caris- maraffs received 150 soft drinks.
She allegedly discov- ered the orders were being placed through DoorDash, according to a since-deleted TikTok. According to the Daily Dot, which covered the update before it was taken down, @carismaraffs called DoorDash, and was told she could keep the bever- ages.
She also was alleged- ly allowed to learn the first names of the per- son or people placing the orders and even
tried to call one of the phone numbers.
“The drivers had the first name,” @caris- maraffs wrote in a comment. “When I got a hold of one of them they tried to call the number connect- ed [to] it [but it] said ‘this number is dis- connect[ed]’?”
But ultimately, @carismaraffs still doesn’t know where the deliveries originat- ed from or why some- one was sending so many orders to
her apartment specifi- cally.
Commenters had a number of theories as to what was happen- ing. A popular one is that @carismaraffs’s address just hap- pened to be part of a “brushing” scam, where “brushers” order things to ran- dom addresses in order to make it appear a legitimate transaction took place and then write posi- tive reviews for it.
However, brushing scams usually take place over third-party sellers like Amazon and eBay.
Another theory is that
this could be some- one testing out stolen credit card informa- tion. Some scammers will use credit card information on small orders through plat- forms like DoorDash to see if the order successfully process- es and gets delivered. Because the pur- chase is so small, typically it will take a while for the owner of the card to notice and shut down the card.
@carismaraffs added in a comment that she had checked her bank statements and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But it still doesn’t explain why so many orders showed up on her front doorstep.
This isn’t the first time Sydney has been hit with warnings about food delivery scams. In November 2022, Sydney residents were warned
about people posing as delivery
drivers allegedly breaking into homes. One woman warned that someone who dropped off an empty Hello Fresh box on her doorstep was caught on CCTV try- ing to see if her front door was unlocked.
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