Hundreds of huge Amazon packages arrive at Calif. woman's doorstep for over a year after Chinese seller lists her home as return address
The woman — identified only as Kay — has been receiving the parcels for over a year now, and they've been arriving at such speed, she's had no choice but to stack them up in her driveway to maintain some semblance of order.
The boxes are piled chest high in her yard, and have become so numerous she can no longer park her car there.
Advertisement
4 The San Jose woman, identified only as Kay, has been unable to park her car in her own driveway due to the piles of packages.
ABC 7 Eyewitness News
'It's just been another form of hell,' Kay told ABC 7.
The culprit is a China-based Amazon seller called Liusandedian, which peddles faux leather car seat covers that apparently fit few of the models they're designed for — so customers by the hundreds have been sending the junk products back.
Advertisement
But the unwanted seat covers haven't been going back to wherever Liusandedian is in China — they've been going to Kay's California driveway.
It started as just one package that Kay thought was a wrong delivery, but more boxes kept arriving over the following weeks. Weeks turned into months — which became over a year — with more and more parcels showing up at her steps until Kay's stoop was buried in boxes.
4 The boxes are filled with faux leather seat covers from a Chinese company, and they apparently don't fit cars well.
ABC 7 Eyewitness News
'What you see now is a fraction, because I have refused delivery on more packages than you see here,' she said.
Advertisement
The package pandemonium has become such a problem that sometimes when she comes home, she can't get her 88-year-old mother to the front door without first parting the sea of boxes blocking the entryway.
And Amazon offered her next to no help for months — with at least six different complaint tickets being filed to no avail, she said.
'Every time I was absolutely assured this will stop,' she told ABC 7. ''You won't get any more of these packages, you'll hear from us in 24, 48 hours.'
4 The packages have been showing up for over a year, and Kay estimates she's received hundreds.
ABC 7 Eyewitness News
Advertisement
The business once tried offering her a $100 gift card for her trouble — but she also claims they told her it was her job to get rid of the packages and suggested she donate them or ship them back to the sender.
'Why is it my responsibility to get rid of this, when your seller is not following your rules, Amazon?' she said, referring to a Liusandedian's apparent violation of Amazon's policies.
4 Kay will sometimes come home to find her stoop buried in packages, blocking her from getting into the house.
ABC 7 Eyewitness News
International sellers are required to either list a US address for returns, give buyers a pre-paid shipping label, or issue refunds without requiring anything be mailed back. If they fail to do so within two days of a return request, Amazon is allowed to refund the buyer and bill the seller.
Liusandedian — which, outside of its Amazon listings, is a ghost online — appears to have skirted around those rules by including a bogus address that turned out to be Kay's address.
Amazon denied that it ever told Kay to handle the problem herself, but on Wednesday finally arrived to clear out the packages — and assured her, again, that she'd never see another Liusandedian seat cover.
'We'd like to thank [ABC 7] for bringing this to our attention. We've apologized to the customer and are working directly with her to pick up any packages while taking steps to permanently resolve this issue,' the company told the outlet.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Inside BYD's plan to rule the waves
Elon Musk had a problem. As Tesla struggled to ramp up sales in October 2022, it faced a critical shortage of ships to deliver its EVs. "There weren't enough boats, there weren't enough trains, there weren't enough car carriers," Musk told investors, after Tesla announced it had delivered tens of thousands of cars fewer than it made over the previous quarter. As Tesla struggled, its biggest Chinese rival devised a novel solution. BYD, which is on course to surpass Tesla this year as the world's top seller of EVs, decided in 2022 to build a fleet of seven giant ships, each capable of carrying thousands of cars. Unlike most of its Western rivals, which typically buy space on car carriers operated by shipping companies, BYD has cut out the intermediary as it doubles down on ambitious plans to sell half its cars outside China by 2030. Six of BYD's giant ships, which are emblazoned with the company's livery and a striking red and white color scheme, have entered service in the past year. Data obtained by Business Insider from ship tracking and maritime analytics provider MarineTraffic shows how the Chinese carmaker is using this fleet to drive an unprecedented international expansion, flooding ports in Europe, Brazil, and Mexico as it takes the fight to Tesla and overtakes legacy automakers. EVs on the high seas BYD's first ship set sail in January 2024, when the BYD Explorer No.1 — a 200-meter-long, 13-deck, roll-on roll-off behemoth — went into service. In July, the Zhengzhou, which can carry up to 7,000 vehicles, became the seventh vessel to join the fleet. The largest ship in BYD's armada, the Shenzhen, has a capacity of over 9,000 vehicles, making it one of the world's largest car-carrying vessels. The massive ships have been busy. After launching, Explorer No.1 immediately began a 41-day voyage to Europe, the first of three separate trips there in 2024. Explorer No.1 has also made three voyages to Brazil since May 2024. In May this year, it docked in the Brazilian port of Portocel in its second visit in four months, with two other BYD ships, the Hefei and the Shenzhen, also arriving in Brazil in April and May. All three arrived fully laden and left empty as BYD raced to deliver its vehicles to Brazil ahead of a planned EV tariff rise in July. The voyages to Europe and Brazil coincide with BYD's sales surging in both markets. BYD, which did not respond to a request for comment for this story, sold just 2,500 vehicles in Brazil in the first half of 2023. It's sold over 56,000 vehicles there so far this year, per data from Brazil's National Federation of Automotive Vehicle Distribution. That's more than Nissan, Renault, and Ford, and it has seen BYD take a dominant position in one of the world's fastest-growing EV markets. In Europe, BYD's sales in the first half of the year were more than 300% higher than over the same period in 2024. The Chinese carmaker sold more pure battery-electric vehicles than Musk's automaker in Europe for the first time in April, and its global EV sales have outpaced Tesla's for the past three quarters. Stian Omli, a senior vice president at logistics intelligence firm Esgian, told Business Insider that BYD was essentially operating a "shuttle service" between its production hubs in China and key ports in Europe and Brazil. BYD's strategy is shaking up the car shipping industry, which has been dominated historically by a handful of established shipping companies that usually plan and invest on cycles of a decade or longer. Companies like Norwegian logistics giant Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Japanese firm NYK Line sell space aboard their ships to multiple companies, then try to stop at as many ports as possible and pick up cargo for the return voyages. But Omli said BYD's strategy was to go direct, dump a massive number of EVs at one or two destination ports, and often return to China empty. "Just like they have changed the competitive landscape when it comes to cars, the Chinese are also changing the competitive landscape when it comes to the car carriers," Omli said. China's brutal EV market forces BYD to go global Stephen Dyer, managing director at auto consultancy AlixPartners, told Business Insider that the Chinese EV industry's drive to expand overseas is driven by a "never-ending" price war at home, as over 100 EV brands fight it out in the world's most brutally competitive car market. "If you can succeed outside China, you gain credibility with your core market consumers in China," said Dyer. BYD could do with a boost. In July, the automaker's sales fell for the first time this year, putting its target of selling 5.5 million cars in 2025 at risk. BYD's decision to operate its own ships had its roots in a post-COVID supply crunch between 2021 and 2023, when high demand combined with a shortage of specialised car carriers. This crunch sent the price of one car carrier for a yearlong charter soaring as high as $125,000 per day, far above the typical pre-COVID high of around $25,000, Omli said. This is what made Musk rage and prompted BYD to embark on its radical strategy just as it was beginning to enter international markets in earnest. BYD's setup allows the company to avoid being caught out if prices soar again, Omli said, and also gives it more flexibility to send its cars where and when it wants. Control over its supply chain is a key part of BYD's formula for building EVs quicker and cheaper than its rivals. The company manufactures almost all of its own parts. Executive vice president Stella Li previously said that the tires and windows of BYD's Dolphin hatchback were the only parts not made in-house. "Developing your own component suppliers gives BYD not only some cost leverage over other suppliers, but also the flexibility to do things much faster," Dyer said. "When you have your own fleet, it's the same idea. It allows you to do things quickly and flexibly. You can divert them to anywhere that you want to go, even part of the way on the voyage. You're assured of supply," he added. A costly gambit BYD is not the only Chinese EV company to dabble in deep-sea shipping. Rivals such as SAIC Motors have built even larger fleets, and Omli estimated the share of the global deep-sea car carrier fleet controlled by Chinese companies will rise from 10-15% to as much as 25% in the next few years. It's a hefty investment. Omli estimated that building the first four ships in its fleet cost BYD around $500 million, with such ships typically costing between $100 and $130 million each to build. BYD's fleet shows no signs of slowing down. The automaker's monthly vehicle exports in July were nearly three times higher than a year ago, per company figures, and its vessels have made six voyages to Europe so far this year. Recently, BYD's fleet has deployed its "shuttle service" strategy in Mexico. The 200-meter-long Changzhou became the first BYD vessel to arrive in the country in June, before criss-crossing the Pacific and returning with another load a month later. The Explorer No.1 has just made the same journey, docking at the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas on 14 August. BYD recently abandoned plans to build a factory in Mexico, but the company's EVs are still in high demand there. Executives say they expect sales to double this year. Data from Esgian shows that the four BYD vessels it tracks — The Explorer No.1, Shenzhen, Hefei, and Changzhou — have visited the Mexican ports of Mazatlan and Lararo Cardenas, along with Portocel, more than any other ports outside Asia this year. No risk, no reward While BYD's shipbuilding surge has given the company the flexibility to export its EVs at unprecedented volume, the strategy has risks. The company and its Chinese rivals have shipped so many vehicles to Europe over the past two years that it has put shipping infrastructure under pressure and turned some ports into giant parking lots. Germany-based auto analyst Matthias Schmidt told Business Insider that most of BYD's sales in Europe were to companies and dealerships, rather than consumers. Schmidt said he believed BYD's strategy was to flood the market through corporate channels and build enough momentum to become a recognisable brand for European consumers. The shipping supply crunch that pushed BYD to build its fleet has now mostly abated. A wave of car-carrying ships has been launched in the past two years, easing the shortage and bringing prices down to around $50,000 per day for one car carrier on a one-year charter, with Omli estimating they will probably fall to around $30,000. With shipping via external carriers a more affordable option, Schmidt said BYD now has to justify the massive costs of running its own fleet by exporting more vehicles. "That's probably partly behind the high number of vehicles coming to Europe right now. They need to ship those vessels relatively full to maximise utilisation," Schmidt added. Alexander Brown, a senior analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, said that "a lot has changed" since BYD went all in on its own ships three years ago. Since then, Western economies have raised trade barriers to protect their own auto industries from Chinese carmakers, and the Trump administration has set about reordering global trade with tariffs. With this protectionism in mind, BYD has another big investment: factories. It recently began production at its new factory in Brazil, on the site of a plant Ford closed in 2021 after years of poor sales and big losses, ending a century of Ford production in the country. The Detroit automaker also shut down multiple plants in Europe, and Chinese automakers are now filling that gap. BYD is building production sites for the European market in Hungary and Turkey. Brown added that, if BYD had known how much tariffs would rise after going all in on cargo ships, "they may have done things a little bit differently." Graphics by Jinpeng Li. Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Insider
9 hours ago
- Business Insider
Inside BYD's plan to rule the waves
Elon Musk had a problem. As Tesla struggled to ramp up sales in October 2022, it faced a critical shortage of ships to deliver its EVs. "There weren't enough boats, there weren't enough trains, there weren't enough car carriers," Musk told investors, after Tesla announced it had delivered tens of thousands of cars fewer than it made over the previous quarter. As Tesla struggled, its biggest Chinese rival devised a novel solution. BYD, which is on course to surpass Tesla this year as the world's top seller of EVs, decided in 2022 to build a fleet of seven giant ships, each capable of carrying thousands of cars. Unlike most of its Western rivals, which typically buy space on car carriers operated by shipping companies, BYD has cut out the intermediary as it doubles down on ambitious plans to sell half its cars outside China by 2030. Six of BYD's giant ships, which are emblazoned with the company's livery and a striking red and white color scheme, have entered service in the past year. Data obtained by Business Insider from ship tracking and maritime analytics provider MarineTraffic shows how the Chinese carmaker is using this fleet to drive an unprecedented international expansion, flooding ports in Europe, Brazil, and Mexico as it takes the fight to Tesla and overtakes legacy automakers. BYD's first ship set sail in January 2024, when the BYD Explorer No.1 — a 200-meter-long, 13-deck, roll-on roll-off behemoth — went into service. In July, the Zhengzhou, which can carry up to 7,000 vehicles, became the seventh vessel to join the fleet. The largest ship in BYD's armada, the Shenzhen, has a capacity of over 9,000 vehicles, making it one of the world's largest car-carrying vessels. The massive ships have been busy. After launching, Explorer No.1 immediately began a 41-day voyage to Europe, the first of three separate trips there in 2024. Explorer No.1 has also made three voyages to Brazil since May 2024. In May this year, it docked in the Brazilian port of Portocel in its second visit in four months, with two other BYD ships, the Hefei and the Shenzhen, also arriving in Brazil in April and May. All three arrived fully laden and left empty as BYD raced to deliver its vehicles to Brazil ahead of a planned EV tariff rise in July. The voyages to Europe and Brazil coincide with BYD's sales surging in both markets. BYD, which did not respond to a request for comment for this story, sold just 2,500 vehicles in Brazil in the first half of 2023. It's sold over 56,000 vehicles there so far this year, per data from Brazil's National Federation of Automotive Vehicle Distribution. That's more than Nissan, Renault, and Ford, and it has seen BYD take a dominant position in one of the world's fastest-growing EV markets. In Europe, BYD's sales in the first half of the year were more than 300% higher than over the same period in 2024. The Chinese carmaker sold more pure battery-electric vehicles than Musk's automaker in Europe for the first time in April, and its global EV sales have outpaced Tesla's for the past three quarters. Stian Omli, a senior vice president at logistics intelligence firm Esgian, told Business Insider that BYD was essentially operating a "shuttle service" between its production hubs in China and key ports in Europe and Brazil. BYD's strategy is shaking up the car shipping industry, which has been dominated historically by a handful of established shipping companies that usually plan and invest on cycles of a decade or longer. Companies like Norwegian logistics giant Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Japanese firm NYK Line sell space aboard their ships to multiple companies, then try to stop at as many ports as possible and pick up cargo for the return voyages. But Omli said BYD's strategy was to go direct, dump a massive number of EVs at one or two destination ports, and often return to China empty. "Just like they have changed the competitive landscape when it comes to cars, the Chinese are also changing the competitive landscape when it comes to the car carriers," Omli said. China's brutal EV market forces BYD to go global Stephen Dyer, managing director at auto consultancy AlixPartners, told Business Insider that the Chinese EV industry's drive to expand overseas is driven by a "never-ending" price war at home, as over 100 EV brands fight it out in the world's most brutally competitive car market. "If you can succeed outside China, you gain credibility with your core market consumers in China," said Dyer. BYD could do with a boost. In July, the automaker's sales fell for the first time this year, putting its target of selling 5.5 million cars in 2025 at risk. BYD's decision to operate its own ships had its roots in a post-COVID supply crunch between 2021 and 2023, when high demand combined with a shortage of specialised car carriers. This crunch sent the price of one car carrier for a yearlong charter soaring as high as $125,000 per day, far above the typical pre-COVID high of around $25,000, Omli said. This is what made Musk rage and prompted BYD to embark on its radical strategy just as it was beginning to enter international markets in earnest. BYD's setup allows the company to avoid being caught out if prices soar again, Omli said, and also gives it more flexibility to send its cars where and when it wants. Control over its supply chain is a key part of BYD's formula for building EVs quicker and cheaper than its rivals. The company manufactures almost all of its own parts. Executive vice president Stella Li previously said that the tires and windows of BYD's Dolphin hatchback were the only parts not made in-house. "Developing your own component suppliers gives BYD not only some cost leverage over other suppliers, but also the flexibility to do things much faster," Dyer said. "When you have your own fleet, it's the same idea. It allows you to do things quickly and flexibly. You can divert them to anywhere that you want to go, even part of the way on the voyage. You're assured of supply," he added. A costly gambit BYD is not the only Chinese EV company to dabble in deep-sea shipping. Rivals such as SAIC Motors have built even larger fleets, and Omli estimated the share of the global deep-sea car carrier fleet controlled by Chinese companies will rise from 10-15% to as much as 25% in the next few years. It's a hefty investment. Omli estimated that building the first four ships in its fleet cost BYD around $500 million, with such ships typically costing between $100 and $130 million each to build. BYD's fleet shows no signs of slowing down. The automaker's monthly vehicle exports in July were nearly three times higher than a year ago, per company figures, and its vessels have made six voyages to Europe so far this year. Recently, BYD's fleet has deployed its "shuttle service" strategy in Mexico. The 200-meter-long Changzhou became the first BYD vessel to arrive in the country in June, before criss-crossing the Pacific and returning with another load a month later. The Explorer No.1 has just made the same journey, docking at the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas on 14 August. BYD recently abandoned plans to build a factory in Mexico, but the company's EVs are still in high demand there. Executives say they expect sales to double this year. Data from Esgian shows that the four BYD vessels it tracks — The Explorer No.1, Shenzhen, Hefei, and Changzhou — have visited the Mexican ports of Mazatlan and Lararo Cardenas, along with Portocel, more than any other ports outside Asia this year. No risk, no reward While BYD's shipbuilding surge has given the company the flexibility to export its EVs at unprecedented volume, the strategy has risks. The company and its Chinese rivals have shipped so many vehicles to Europe over the past two years that it has put shipping infrastructure under pressure and turned some ports into giant parking lots. Germany-based auto analyst Matthias Schmidt told Business Insider that most of BYD's sales in Europe were to companies and dealerships, rather than consumers. Schmidt said he believed BYD's strategy was to flood the market through corporate channels and build enough momentum to become a recognisable brand for European consumers. The shipping supply crunch that pushed BYD to build its fleet has now mostly abated. A wave of car-carrying ships has been launched in the past two years, easing the shortage and bringing prices down to around $50,000 per day for one car carrier on a one-year charter, with Omli estimating they will probably fall to around $30,000. With shipping via external carriers a more affordable option, Schmidt said BYD now has to justify the massive costs of running its own fleet by exporting more vehicles. "That's probably partly behind the high number of vehicles coming to Europe right now. They need to ship those vessels relatively full to maximise utilisation," Schmidt added. Alexander Brown, a senior analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, said that "a lot has changed" since BYD went all in on its own ships three years ago. Since then, Western economies have raised trade barriers to protect their own auto industries from Chinese carmakers, and the Trump administration has set about reordering global trade with tariffs. With this protectionism in mind, BYD has another big investment: factories. It recently began production at its new factory in Brazil, on the site of a plant Ford closed in 2021 after years of poor sales and big losses, ending a century of Ford production in the country. The Detroit automaker also shut down multiple plants in Europe, and Chinese automakers are now filling that gap. BYD is building production sites for the European market in Hungary and Turkey. Brown added that, if BYD had known how much tariffs would rise after going all in on cargo ships, "they may have done things a little bit differently." Graphics by Jinpeng Li.
Newsweek
12 hours ago
- Newsweek
Lewis Hamilton's Former Mercedes Teammate Offers Crucial Advice to Ferrari
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. The Scuderia Ferrari Formula One team has been enduring a challenging 2025 season thus far, and Lewis Hamilton's former Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg, has asked the team to listen to the seven-time world champion. This comes after Hamilton sent documents to Ferrari to elevate the team's competitiveness at all levels. Hamilton's debut season with the Maranello-based team has been a bumpy ride thus far, with most challenges surrounding the SF-25 F1 car. To enhance the car's performance and ensure no elements are carried forward to the 2026 car, the Briton has sent several documents detailing his feedback and suggestions. Hamilton revealed ahead of the race at Spa-Francorchamps that he also held meetings with the top-level management and engineers to ensure the entire team remains on the same page. Beyond just the car, he also advised Ferrari on making "structural" adjustments to the team. The 40-year-old driver arrived at Ferrari with the most impressive driver resume a team could have asked for, and his knowledge about what goes into becoming a championship-winning team could be extremely crucial for Ferrari. Here's what Hamilton said about the changes: Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Scuderia Ferrari prepares to drive in the garage prior to practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Australia at Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit on March 14, 2025... Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Scuderia Ferrari prepares to drive in the garage prior to practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Australia at Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit on March 14, 2025 in Melbourne, Australia. More"Yeah, I was at the factory for two weeks, a couple of days each week. We did preparation — naturally, going over where we were in the previous race, things that we need to change. I held a lot of meetings, so I've called on lots of meetings with the heads of the team. "I've sat with John [Elkann], Benedetto [Vigna], and Fred [Vasseur] in several meetings. I've sat with the head of car development, with Loic [Serra] and also the heads of different departments — talking about the engine for next year, front suspension for next year, rear suspension for next year, things that you want, issues that I have with this car. "I've sent documents, as I've done throughout the year. After the first few races, I did a full document for the team. Then, during this break, I had another two documents that I sent in. So, then I come in and want to address those. "Some of it's structural adjustments that we need to make as a team in order to get better in all the areas we want to improve. And the other one was really about the car — the current issues that I have with this car. Some things you do want to take on to next year's car, and some that you need to work on changing for next year. "We did development for — tried the 2026 car for the first time and started work on that. Thirty engineers come into the room, and you sit and debrief with every single one of them. So, big, big push. And otherwise just training — maybe a little bit too hard, a bit heavy this weekend." Given Hamilton's knowledge and premier class racing experience, former F1 champion Rosberg has asked Ferrari to take Hamilton's input seriously. He said: "He's a seven-time World Champion, so you definitely have to listen to what a seven-time World Champion is telling you. But it also takes time. Many of the things they cannot just change overnight. If the brakes are an issue, it's a long lead time to develop the new brake system. Or if he's not happy with the balance, it's a really long process. "So in many senses, he will be even thinking about next year already now as well, with some of the things that he's talking about. I think it's a good sign, though, that we're hearing that Lewis is pushing, you know. He's not like resign, giving up, but he's really pushing hard, the team, the owners, the team boss. That's a great sign."
