For a whole year, a woman from San Jose, who goes by the pseudonym “Kay,” woke up every morning with her front porch overrun with giant packages that she never ordered. They just kept showing up. Hundreds of them. They were clogging her driveway, blocking her doorway, and trapping her 88-year-old disabled mom inside their home.

Each box contained the same thing: faux-leather car seat covers from a Chinese Amazon seller called “Liusandedian,” and shipped under the brand “Etkin.” Kay didn’t order them. She was just a dumping ground for returns from actual buyers who were duped into purchasing these ugly, ill-fitting car seat covers, only to be told to return them to Kay’s address.

It should be of no surprise to you that Kay’s home plays no role in the sprawling Amazon delivery logistics chain. She’s just a random person whose home is being bombarded with a cartoonish amount of large packages.

Loophole In Amazon’s Return Policy Floods Woman With Thousands Of Packages

Here’s how it works: sellers like Liusandedian exploit Amazon’s international return loopholes. Instead of coughing up for return shipping or offering a “returnless refund” (as Amazon policy allegedly demands), they slap Kay’s address on the label and call it a day. The original buyer never gets the refund. One buyer paid $129 for covers and was asked to fork over $124 just to return them. She didn’t get her money back.

It’s a scam, though I hesitate to call it a clever one (though, I mean…it kind of is, in a criminal sort of way) and one that Amazon seems content to do little to nothing about.

Kay told ABC7 she filed six complaints with Amazon. They promised it would stop. They even gave her a $100 gift card, as if that could magically make dozens and dozens of crappy car seat covers disappear. Each month, more boxes came. At one point, Amazon suggested she donate the packages. Kay was left wondering why it had suddenly become her job to clean up Amazon’s mess.

Amazon’s return policy technically requires international sellers to make returns easy or foot…but enforcement on that policy is pathetic, to say the least, as Kay’s overabundance of car seats that she didn’t order demonstrates.

Liusandedian has no contact info and no website. 43 percent of the company reviews are one-star. Maybe the most incredible part of the whole story of how people keep buying from a company that’s being given one-star reviews 43 percent of the time.

After a year of complaints, it took a local news team to get Amazon’s attention. Within days of the teams’ reporting, the packages were removed, and Amazon vowed to investigate.

Finally, after a year, it took a local news team to get Amazon’s attention. Within days, the packages were removed. Amazon vowed to investigate. Kay is free from her packaging hell. Let’s just hope that after all that, she doesn’t suddenly realize she is in desperate need of ill-fitting car seat covers from a shady Chinese Amazon seller.