It probably could be automated to a point where there's no human even in the loop here: I wonder if books about mushroom identification are trending in Amazon UK sales lately, or something like that.

No excuse, obviously. But it could explain how whoever's running the scam could have run it off this cliff - probably others, too.

It's been a couple years since I bought even paper books off Amazon. Used should theoretically be closer to OK, but eBay sellers are cheaper and much more trustworthy.