The flatmates then gave the scorpion water on kitchen towel, which it drank immediately, and some card to hide under before contacting animal groups.
Phoebe said they had tried the RSPCA but realised it was more set up to collect cats and dogs, before getting in touch with the National Centre for Reptile Welfare (NCRW).
The charity was able to send someone over within a couple of hours.
NCRW’s Chris Newman said reports of such stowaways were surprisingly frequent.
“The scorpion is Olivierus martensii, it doesn’t really have a common name other than Chinese scorpion,” he said.
He said its sting would be “medically significant… potentially life threatening but an average adult would just have a really bad day”.
“It is quite worrying this is the second one we have had in under a month that has come in this way.”
Fortunately there was no sting in the tail of this tale, and Ms Alonso-Mossinger said it now felt “like it is a funny story… but it was pretty scary at the time”.
Shein said it was in touch with her to resolve the issue.
In a statement it said: “After receiving the feedback, we immediately conducted an internal investigation.
“Our teams on the ground have checked the shipment packing process and carried out an inspection of the goods in our warehouse and have confirmed that all standard operating processes have been adhered to.”
