Peter Rhodes on dodgy online shopping, a surprise parcel and the prospect of rule by Boris

IN a week that saw a shattering drop in traditional shop sales as people bought Xmas bargains on the internet, how long before we fall out of love with online shopping? I have been stung three times in 48 hours by online scams.

FIRST, on eBay, I found a nice-looking camera at a price that seemed just too good to be true. It was. It turned out to be advertised on a "compromised" website which had been temporarily hi-jacked by crooks to sell non-existent items, grab the money and run. I am hoping for a refund.

NEXT, the "your parcel was delivered today" gambit. This is the one when they tell you that Royal Mail has safely delivered your parcel, and it was signed for, but nothing arrives and the online tracking number doesn't work. The dealer emails sweetly "May I suggest we wait a while ok?" (while moving the expected delivery date back by a fortnight) but I'm inclined to leave negative feedback and ask for my money back.

AND finally, the surprise-parcel scam which is a new one on me. A padded envelope arrived addressed to me this week containing a bottle of face mask from China for a beautiful, fresh complexion. I never ordered it and there is no paperwork. As far as I can tell, this seems to be part of a so-called "brushing" scam where suppliers post thousands of cheap products to lists of addresses they have bought or stolen, in order to increase their sales and generate fake positive reviews. Brushing can create what looks like an established and reputable online presence for a dealer in a fraction of the time it would take by honest dealing.

WHAT to do with such unordered parcels? You can keep them – but only if they fit the legal description of "unsolicited goods". As Citizen's Advice puts it: "You can only keep hold of an item if it is addressed to you, there has been no previous contact with the company, and it arrives out of the blue." Anyway, I have my story and I'm sticking to it. And who could possibly question the word of somebody with such a beautiful, fresh complexion?

IT hardly needs adding that we never had any of these problems when we did the Xmas shopping at Woolworths.

POLITICAL terms that we don't want to see in 2019. A form of government cobbled together in a moment of national panic after a political crisis is a Boristocracy. And no, I don't think we'll see one either.

THE Duchess of Sussex's father, Thomas Markle, complains that Meghan never replies to him, even though he texts her every day. And there, I bet, is the problem. As anyone in public life will tell you, if you start replying to the people who text you every day, they start texting you twice a day. How about leaving it until next year, Tom?