WATCH: A mystery is growing on college and university campuses across the country after receiving anonymous packages. Isabelle Raghem reports.
Several colleges and universities across the country have been receiving packages containing random items – everything from record players to fishing gear to sex toys.
“Today we got some fishing tackle,” Camosun Student Society’s Coordinator Michael Glover said Thursday.
Since November, Glover says their office has received about 50 anonymous packages, each containing items as random as the last.
“It’s strange we’ve probably received somewhere in the vicinity of a thousand dollars in merchandise.”
The items come in Amazon packaging, addressed to “student union” but there’s no indication who’s ordering them or why.
“Initially we called Amazon Prime to find out what was going on, and they couldn’t tell us much, they weren’t sure,” Glover added.
There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to it; there are weeks they receive several packages, some weeks they don’t receive a thing.
“It’s turning out to be a fun little event, it’s casual and it’s fun and it’s kind of interesting to stand around and find out what’s in the box,” said UVic mail receiver Steven McDonald.
Another campus left stumped by the “Amazon mystery” is UVic.
“We sort of held on to them in the back thinking someone was going to grab them but what we did when we realized that nobody was grabbing them we donated all of them to our food bank and free store handed them out to people,” said UVic’s Student’s Society Pierre-Paul Angelblazer.
In fact, the pricey packages are popping up at universities and colleges from coast to coast including in Regina, Toronto and Halifax.
“VIU was getting bbq mats and weird things I think they ended up getting a fleshlight and that freaked them out and they called police. So far the police has said they’re nothing you can do, this isn’t a crime,” said Glover.
Amazon says its investigating but doesn’t have any leads because the items were purchased using untraceable gift cards.
“There doesn’t seem to be any theme or rhyme or reason to the stuff it’s like what do we get today, we get all excited and we look,” said Glover.
For now, they wait for someone to shine a light on this mystery.
Isabelle Raghem
