Amazon said customers reported an 80% increase in impersonation scams surrounding last year’s Prime Day sale, and it is working to get the word out to shoppers to remain on their guard and be suspicious of messages purportedly coming from Amazon during this year’s sale.
Impersonation scams via email increased by 50% during Prime Day 2024 when compared to the weeks before Prime Day. The company shared that the top three most common tactics in these emails were scammers pretending to be Amazon and telling consumers one of the following:
- there was a problem with their account;
- a problem with their order;
- or asking for alternate payment information (e.g., “Your payment did not go through, please try this alternate payment method”) that sent victims to a phishing link.
The same caution applies to messages from other marketplaces and retailers which are capitalizing on Prime Day to run sales of their own this week.
Impersonation scams also come in the form of phone calls from “Amazon” and even pop-ups that trick people into calling “Microsoft” because their computer has been taken over (when that’s not the case).
We were shocked last year when a personal finance columnist shared her story of getting scammed when “Amazon” called her. To understand how sophisticated scammers have gotten at successfully getting normally calm and rational people to literally give them tens of thousands of dollars in cash, read, “The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger. I never thought I was the kind of person to fall for a scam.”
Something similar happened to a friend (with a happier ending than the columnist who bravely shared her story). So if you are speaking to someone you believe is from a legitimate company like Amazon and they offer to transfer you to someone at your bank or to someone in law enforcement – that is a huge red flag, and that lesson will likely stay with you once you read the story.
We also saw a couple profiled on the evening news last week who were talked into purchasing gift cards from all over town and providing the card numbers and pin numbers to a scammer. It takes a lot of guts to share such horror stories, but people are doing so in the hopes it will prevent others from sharing their plight.
Amazon shared the following tips to help consumers spot and protect themselves from impersonation scams:
1) Verify purchases on Amazon. If you receive a message about the purchase of a product or service, do not respond to the message or click on any link in the message; instead, log into your Amazon account or use the Amazon mobile app and confirm that it is really in your purchase history before taking any action.
2) Trust Amazon’s app and website. We will not ask for payment over the phone or email—only in our mobile app, on our website, or in one of our physical stores. We will not call and ask you to make a payment or bank transfer on another website.
3) Be wary of false urgency. Scammers often try to create a sense of urgency to persuade you to do what they’re asking.
4) Don’t be pressured into buying a gift card. We will never ask you to purchase a gift card, and no legitimate sale or transaction will require you to pay with gift cards. Learn more about common gift card scams on our help pages.
5) Contact us. If you’re ever unsure, it’s safest to stop engaging with the potential scammer and contact us directly through the Amazon app or website. Do not call numbers sent over text or email or found in online search results. Remember Amazon will not ask you to download or install any software to connect with customer service nor will we request payment for any customer service support.
6) Check what others are saying. See if anyone else has reported a similar situation. In the U.S., Amazon has partnered with the Better Business Bureau to provide consumers a searchable Scam Tracker that enables you to search suspicious communications reported by others by email, URL, phone number, and more.
While these tips come from Amazon, they apply to other sites as well – stay vigilant, never click on a link in an email to sign in to an account, and don’t let anyone transfer you to your bank, the FBI, or the Treasury Department. Hang up and call them yourself!
And if you (or someone you know) does get scammed, Amazon has a self-reporting tool. Just make sure to doublecheck you are on the Amazon website when using it. You can also report scams to the Internet Crime Complaint Center – a message at the top of the page now warns, “Scammers are Impersonating the IC3,” so of course, make sure you are on the correct page.