Question: have you ever received a package in the mail that you never ordered in the first place? We have, and we must admit, it can be quite the thrilling, albeit confounding, circumstance.

To tell you the truth, we simply ended up with a box that should have been delivered to our next-door neighbor—we know, we should really start reading those address labels! That said, it was thrilling, nonetheless, to cut open that cardboard and wonder why a stranger was sending us a box of lightbulbs.

OK, maybe not the best anecdote in the history of anecdotes, especially considering the tale we are about to tell you . . .

You see, all over the nation, stories are popping up about everyday folks receiving items from Amazon that they never ordered. What makes the development truly odd is that the packages were addressed to them.

Now, when we first heard about these unusual occurrences, we thought that these guys were pretty lucky—who doesn’t want to come home to free stuff?!—but once we dug a little deeper, we began to get really creeped out.

Local Michigan news station Fox 17 interviewed a woman by the name of Brandy Long who is currently dealing with this very situation. The woman, who tells us she has never ordered from Amazon before, received her first surprise package from the retailer the day she purchased her new home.

Long admits that it was odd to come home to a brown package containing a soccer ball that she didn’t order, but what made it even stranger was the fact that no one had her new address yet. This means that no person from her inner circle – or outer circle, for that matter – could have known where she and her family were living.

As time went on, Long received more packages, including one that contained a camera. This one, in particular, put her on alert. “Maybe someone’s telling me that they’re watching me,” Long wondered.

But the story doesn’t end there. As it turns out, there are other examples of this very thing happening across the nation, with the most extreme being in Massachusetts. There, Mike and Kelly Gallivan have received a whopping 50 unwanted items, mostly electronics, to their home.

Fed up, the Gallivans have reached out to Amazon twice. The first time, the retailer was able to trace the package back to an Amazon distribution center in Kentucky, which leads us to believe it could have been some sort of odd internal glitch.

Their second call garnered even weirder results. Apparently, the rest of the items were bought with Amazon gift cards, which means the retailer has no way of tracing the buyer.

In an interview with USA Today, the couple says that their theory is that a third-party retailer in China may have gotten a hold of their information from a past order and are sending the couple complimentary items in order to strengthen their Amazon reviews.

Hey—a theory’s a theory!

What Amazon is saying about these mysterious packages

Spoiler alert: Not a whole lot!

In fact, the company has only made a statement in regards to the Gallivan’s situation. Other than that, the only help that we could find was a link on its website entitled “Returning Items You Didn’t Order.”

Shockingly, the online retail giant doesn’t list an option for any poor soul who is in Brandy Long’s shoes. In fact, the only scenario that Amazon lays out for its customers that remotely resembles this situation is the “gifts” section of its returns FAQ.

Apparently, customers can return gifts, but they must be both returned with gift receipts AND be specified as a gift from the person who sent it. Because these folks don’t know who sent them the merchandise in the first place, it’s impossible to tell whether or not the items were, in fact, intended to be gifts.

Just when you thought the world couldn’t get any wackier, right?! To meet Brandy Long and hear her take on these mysterious Amazon packages, be sure to watch the video below.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this odd story. Has something like this ever happened to you? If so, did you find a way to resolve it? What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever received in the mail?