One day my mother phoned me to ask if I'd bought her a computer. Um, I love you, but no. It seems a laptop had just been delivered. I urgerd her to call amex, and in fact it had been purchased with her card. Places like dell will ship to the billing address on the card but not elsewhere without further verification. My guess is the perpetrator assumed people are at work when deliveries arrive, and they can scarper off with the packages before the homeowner notiices. They won't figure it out till the card bill arrives. Sure enough, the next day there were footprints going around to the back of the house in the fresh snow. Creepy.