The concept is as simple as it is alluring... get to open someone else’s parcel that never made it as far as their doorstep.

Introducing the latest ‘mystery package’ craze sweeping our shopping centres, organisers King Colis make this bargain hunt sound like fun.

Their website states: ‘When you buy lost packages, you never know what you’re going to receive : High tech? Jewelry? Clothes? Shoes? Handbags? Gadgets ? Video games? Collector’s items? Every unboxing is a new adventure!’

What wonders might the brown Evri package contain? Rare gems, hewn from the bowels of an African diamond mine or a glittering presentation box, showcasing his and her Rolex watches?

It has been claimed that a woman in France once found a bar of gold.

You get 10 minutes for your parcel dash, then pay by weight at the end. At the St Enoch Centre in Glasgow, which we visited this week, the rate is £2.50 per 100g.

They say it’s pure greed that make the best schemes work but I wasn’t prepared to entertain such negative thoughts as I watched excited customers before me rifle through cases of potential goodies.

I placed my faith in the young lady in front of me in the queue, taking her lunch break from a well-known jewellers in the nearby Argyll Arcade.

‘I heard someone found a Cartier watch once,' she said.

Even the sight of one young man, clearly crestfallen, could not impinge on my boundless optimism.

One romantic chap from Motherwell in Lanarkshire took a picture of his unopened ‘bounty’ on his mobile phone, sending it with the message ‘surprise surprise’.

He explained to me it was his wife’s birthday and this saved him visiting multitude shops for gifts. Wonder how that worked out.

With a £100 budget, I arrived prepared to slash my way through the countless packages I thought I’d be able to buy for that.

Sitting in St Enoch Square following my shopping spree, I prepared to reveal my goodies.

Memories of early 1960’s sweet shops came to mind, the kind my grandparents took me to on a Sunday morning where you could capture a ‘Lucky Bag’ that harboured all manner of sugary treats.

This was Lucky Bags for grown-ups.

So what of my treasure trove that weighed in at £99.75? It was perhaps unfortunate that the first package opened harboured replacement inflatable rubber inner rings for a very small tyre.

Would this be the first item to register on my tat-ometer?

In no particular order, I found two thin metal rulers, several ladies’ tops and T-shirts, brightly-coloured electrical wiring, a number of XXL casual shirts for men, the kind of hooks you see hanging off a butcher’s shelf, three door handles (with screws) and two packages of thin plastic circles that may have fallen out a box of ‘Spirograph’.

One of the packages was addressed to a guest of HM Prison in Hull. It would be easy to conclude that someone should be getting the jail for this pile of rubbish.

In my excitement, I must have dropped my reporter’s notebook into one of the bins heaving with parcels.

So if someone tells you they found a ‘Notebook’ at a future sale, don’t believe it was a slimline computer, It’s just a notebook.