I'm sorry but YDI. why on earth would you buy something like that and not tell her it was coming? I highly doubt a warning that it was coming is going to ruin the mystery, otherwise I'm guessing the company would have a lot of complaints from people accidentally throwing it out

Why on Earth didn't you tell her it was coming? Surely the clues are the mystery. She still needed to know it was happening.

That really sucks, but may be fixable. You may be able to contact the company and ask them to resend the clues. You may be able to argue that she never got them (because did she? We don't know since she apparently was burning mail willy nilly). Hopefully, they can resend and she can get the experience proper this time.

You totally deserve that

For those telling the OP they deserve it for not telling their mother, part of the mystery is figuring out who the sender is, or at least that is my understanding. (Source: I've been looking into doing one of these for my husband.)

I'm sorry but some people just are going to be suspicious about getting mysterious packages in the mail. It sucks, but you should have made absolutely sure this was going to work the way you wanted it to.

I would have done the same as your mom did. Mystery mail goes to mystery bin. Give the person at least some kind of warning!

I like the idea of Mysterious Package Company, but I don't think I would like to be the recipient. My friend told me she almost did one for me, but decided against it because she figured I'd be freaked. And honestly, I would be. A few years ago another friend got me flowers for my birthday and the florist forgot her name and I totally freaked out. People generally don't give me gifts, and at the time I had had problems with unwanted advances from customers, so my anxiety went through the roof. But seriously, who the hell burns mail and packages?! You can just write "refused" on them and take them back to the post office.

Why would burning gifts outsmart scammers?

This is a great idea, my suggestion would have been for the son to be around his mother for the first clue, so he could help her start the "quest". I know my fiance would love something like this, but solving 'crimes'. He studied criminal justice in college and did case studies. He would always talk about forming a class for students where they worked with local police to solve real cold cases. Since that idea would take a lot of cooperation with police and confidential information to students, it was not the easiest request, even with a supportive faculty/college. Until then, I'm going to suggest to him creating a murder mystery game for college students as one of the research paper replacement and see what he says!