Woman receives over 100 Amazon packages she never ordered

Cindy Smith, from Virginia, started receiving packages at her Prince William County home which she had never ordered. She received about 1,000 headlamps, 800 glue guns and dozens of pairs of binoculars. The boxes bore Smith’s address, but the name Lixiao Zhang, a name Smith said she had never heard before.

“We initially thought it was a brushing scam,” Smith said, referring to the process of an online vendor creating fake sales of their products in order to artificially inflate their number of 5-star reviews.

Amazon officials said they looked into both incidents, and discovered both Smith and Geltman’s packages were the result of vendors having packages shipped to random addresses in order to remove unsold merchandise from Amazon fulfilment centres.

Teen skips rope 374 times in one minute

Guinness World Records said Zhou Qi from Yuyao City, Ningbo, broke Japanese jumper Daisuke Mimura’s record of 348 skips in one minute, which stood for 10 years.

Zhou, who previously applied for the record but had to start over due to Guinness World Records guidelines, said his new record isn’t even his personal best.

“My best performance was 398 times in one minute, and that was done in the online part of the middle school division of the 3rd Primary and Secondary School Students’ Rope Skipping Championship in 2022,” he told Guinness World Records.

A collection of 23,632 Winnie the Pooh items

Deb Hoffman of Waukesha, Wisconsin first earned the Guinness World Record in 2008, when she had 2,891 pieces related to A.A. Milne’s fictional toy bear. Her record has now been updated by Guinness World Records, confirming that she now has 23,632 different items.

Hoffman’s home is filled with Pooh paraphernalia, including stuffed animals, toys, clothing, costumes, jewellery, watches paintings and more.

“I’m having so much fun collecting, meeting people, doing different things. Boy, I just don’t see an end in sight,” Hoffman told.

The recognition from GWR and previous features in news stories has led to her receiving hundreds of items from complete strangers.

Balancing umbrella on one finger record

An Idaho man with more than 250 Guinness World Records to his name attempted to break another record by balancing an umbrella on his finger for 3 hours, 46 minutes and 16 seconds.

David Rush said some of the largest obstacles to breaking the record were overcoming fatigue and the monotony of standing and sitting still during his attempt.

Rush’s time of 3 hours, 46 minutes and 16 seconds bested the current record of 3 hours, 31 minutes, and 43 seconds. His attempt must still be reviewed by Guinness World Records before becoming official.

Published in Dawn, Young World, Aug 12th, 2023