OREANDA-NEWS. Britons massively buy up lost parcels on eBay and other marketplaces — with no idea what's inside. This is reported by the British tabloid «The Daily Mail». The boxes can contain the latest iPhone or a set of cheap T-shirts. Videos of the unpacking process are posted on YouTube and in TikTok.

According to «The Daily Mail», about 7.5 million items have been stolen or lost since the lockdown announced in the UK due to the coronavirus pandemic. During the quarantine, many Britons switched to online shopping, which led to an increase in the load on postal operators and, as a result, an increase in the number of lost parcels.

Journalists of «The Daily Mail» paid 360 pounds for one of the allegedly lost parcels. Inside were a «Sony Xperia X» smartphone with a 32 GB memory card, a coffee maker, Himalayan salt, cheap lipstick and clothes. The journalists estimated the cost of the set at 200 pounds, which is 160 pounds less than what they paid the seller.

According to The Daily Mail, many «mysterious packages» turn out to be packages from China. They usually contain cheap plastic toys and sometimes — teddy bears with the image of Donald Trump. According to «The Daily Mail», about a million parcels arrive in the UK from China in a week. And thousands of such packages cannot be delivered due to incorrect information. In turn, returning to China would be too expensive, so many such parcels are allegedly put up for online auctions — it is much cheaper.

However, the Royal Mail and other operators deny their connection with the appearance of lost or stolen parcels on Internet sites. The newspapper's source at The Royal Mail pointed out, that items, that could not be delivered, would never have been auctioned blindly, without examining the contents.