Amazon Gift Card Purchase Phishing Scam Email
The original site is no longer online; links go to the Internet Archive copy.
What the fact-checkers found
Image: © depositphotos.com/dimarik
This email claims that your Amazon account was used to buy a $250 Gift Card.
It warns that the card was purchased from a computer or device that has not been previously associated with your Amazon account.
The message notes that, if you did not purchase the card or believe that an unauthorized person has accessed your account, you should click a “cancel order” link to deal with the issue and verify your information.
However, the email is not from Amazon. Instead, it is a phishing scam designed to harvest your personal and financial information.
The criminals who sent the email hope that at least a few recipients will be panicked into believing that their Amazon account has been compromised and click the link.
The link opens a fake website that has been built to look like it belongs to Amazon. The fake site will first ask you to enter your Amazon account login details and then instruct you to fill in a verification” form. The form asks for your name and contact details, your credit card numbers and other information that could be used to identify you.
At the end of the process, you may be informed that you have successfully secured your account and cancelled the gift card order.
But, criminals can now take all of the information you supplied and use it to hijack your Amazon account, commit credit card fraud and, possibly, steal your identity.
Amazon scams like this one are very common, especially around Christmas time. If you receive a suspicious email that claims to be from Amazon, do not click any links or open any attachments that it contains.
You can always check the status of your account and check any transactions by entering the Amazon address into your browser’s address bar and logging in. This is much safer than clicking a link in an email.
The Amazon website includes information about how to identify and report such phishing scams.
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