Glen Rock Resident Falls Prey to Amazon “Security Breach” Text Scam

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Glen Rock on Monday November 29th at  1:29 PM , a Glen Rock resident reported that after making an Amazon purchase, they received a text from what was believed to be Amazon concerning a purchase in the amount of $1,490.97 which the resident did not make.  A number was provided to dispute the charge which they called.

The purported representative informed them that the account had been hacked and that the resident would need to buy gift cards to fix the security breach.  Over the next five hours the victim purchased over $10,000 in gift cards from NIKE, TARGET and E-BAY which were provided to the representative.  The matter has been referred to the Glen Rock Detective Bureau and the victim has contacted the gift card providers in attempt to put a hold on them, however, some had already been used.

According to the site https://www.thatsfake.com/ There is a wide variety of Amazon scams that can be orchestrated through text, email and through the phone.

Amazon “you’ve been charged” scam phone calls

One of the most popular Amazon phone calls scams is an unexpected call that claims a purchase has been made from the recipient’s Amazon account. The call will usually ask the person to press a key on their keypad for details about the purchase or to cancel it. This will then lead to the recipient being tricked into handing over personal and financial information to a scammer over the phone.

In more advanced versions of this scam, the recipient is told to access their computer, where the scammer, posing as an Amazon employee, instructs them to download remote access software onto their computer, giving a scammer access to it.
From there the scammer can download malware or trick the victim into believing they’ve received too much money from the refund, whereby the scammer asks for the victim to return some money back (often via gift cards, courier or Western Union.)

Amazon scam texts and emails

Amazon scam emails and texts usually try and trick a recipient into believing something suspicious or malicious has happened to their Amazon account. The messages contain a link (or a phone number to call) whereby the recipient can, according to the message, investigate and rectify the problem.

For example these scams can claim –

• That the recipient has been locked out of their Amazon account due to security issues
• That the recipient has been locked out of their Amazon account due to a violation
• That the recipient has made a purchase and can click a link or call a helpline number if the recipient did not make the purchase
• To provide shipping information for a fictitious Amazon purchase, thus alarming the recipient into investigating.

However in the cases above, the recipient is tricked into handing over sensitive and personal information to cyber crooks.

Other scam texts and emails can claim that the recipient has won a promotion, competition, lottery or raffle.

Some examples of Amazon scam texts and emails are below.

A standard phishing email claims the recipient has been locked out of their account and they need to click a link to resolve the issue.