Here's what I think is going on:

A Chinese seed company received a business loan which was less than what they expected. The reason given by the bank was that the company was only doing business domestically. It had no "international presence". So, some genius at the seed company decided to create an "international presence" by creating a bunch of bogus international orders.

They were sufficiently unenlightened to assume that American gardeners would treat free seeds like manna from heaven and keep their mouths shut. They didn't count on Americans being a very suspicious lot.