There’s no Amazon warehouse in Vermont, but Deena Frankel’s Burlington home is beginning to resemble one. Over the past eight weeks, she’s received more than two dozen packages from people around the country who are trying to return items they bought through the online retail giant.
Frankel has figured out why the packages are ending up on her porch — but has had trouble trying to stop them.
“The whole thing has been so crazy,” Frankel said. “Amazon said they were going to do something about it, but they haven’t.”
All the returns are sequin-covered formalwear ordered from YejuanShop, a Chinese-based third-party vendor on Amazon. According to Frankel, the company promises free shipping on returns, then reneges when customers try to get a mailing label. Instead, YejuanShop instructs the customers to address the returns to a nonexistent “Samantha Cole” at Frankel’s Pine Street address.
The Burlington resident has no clue what motivated the company to direct returns to her home.
“There are dozens of complaints online about this company for this return policy, and they just don’t do anything about it,” Frankel said.
Frankel asked the U.S. Postal Service to stop delivering them. But returns were still coming via UPS, she said. They’ve finally slowed to a trickle in recent weeks.
Frankel has been in touch with YejuanShop and Amazon, both of which have promised to stop the practice. She’s also contacted some of those sending in the returns. One woman told Frankel that she hadn’t been reimbursed for the return — and was also out the cost of shipping. But the woman didn’t want the item back.
Frankel, who lamented the throwaway culture, has been donating the dresses and other items to Replays, a South Burlington resale shop where the proceeds benefit the University of Vermont Medical Center.
“This stuff has been selling like hotcakes,” she said. “I’ve dropped off a couple dozen items, and there were only two left on the rack.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Package Deal”
This article appears in Oct 8-14 2025.
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