OT Amazon scams

[Chris Hogg]

Had two of these in quick succession. The first was a phone call telling me something about being charged for Amazon Prime and if I wanted to cancel press 1. I thought 'well, I can go into the Amazon web site and cancel' so I hung up. Needless to say when I logged in via my normal route, I was not subscribing to Amazon Prime. The second, on the following day, was an email telling me there had been a log in to my account from an unknown device and I should log in _here_ check my orders and delete any I hadn't ordered. When I logged in via my normal route, there were of course no unordered orders.

The scammers do seem to be targeting Amazon customers ATM, so be alert.

[Davidm]

Yes, a few days ago I had an email "from Amazon" querying something about my account, and asking me to contact them via a link or they would debit my account with £xx. Just mousing over the link then displays the real url at the bottom of the screen (using Thunderbird mail client). Needless to say the link was obviously nothing to do with Amazon. Marked as junk and deleted.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

Well there is a bona fide message from Amazon about an unknown device logged in on xxxx if this was you than click here, its also bothering me more and more to-do a third way of checking its me by making me click a link to get a code sent to my mobile then type it in to the box. I suspect this has happened as they have been experiencing a lot of hacking attempts recently. I'm glad to see it in one way, but its a pain in others as so called Alexa buying occasionally needs you to open the app on the phone and enter the text code. If you are a person who has had your account set up by a family member who has the mobile, rather than you, as you cannot use a computer or phone, you are then stuffed of course. One odd thing the other day is I bought a portable radio from Amazon, and all went well, but when I went on line next time the item had reappeared in my shopping basket again, but at an increased price. I could not get it to go away. In the end I set qty to0 and it finally vanished. That I think is a bug in the shopping basket system when you use Amazon Smile donations system where you use the smile.Amazon.co.uk shopping basket to check out and sometimes it can take a few days to clean it out of the basket on the main site.

Also on Tuesday, their add a payment method was down just giving an error and try later. Brian

[T i m]

<snip>

We have had a few of the phone calls about our Prime subscription going up to £35/m and other saying £600 was taken from our Amazon account or some such. Neither were true of course.

We still get the odd 'This it BT something, your Internet connection is infected and will be disconnected soon ...' interesting considering I'm on VM cable.

I actually picked up one of those calls for a laugh and he insisted that 'BT carry all the Internet you know ...'. ;-)

I offered them to cut any of my services off they wanted .. <click brrrrr>.

Cheers, T i m

[Graham.]

The real villains of the peace in this are Amazon themselves, for making it too easy to click the "free trial next-day delivery" box at the checkout" and not making it clear that you are entering into a subscription contract.

I fell for this myself, but quickly realised. I had to ask Google how to cancel it because it wasn't obvious.

The Amazon Refund scammers have simply caught on to the fact that many people have accidentally signed up for Prime.

I do get the calls, but Amazon don't have my phone number so I doubt I was specifically targeted like Nomen suggested.

[Michael Chare]

+1

[jon lopgel]

Yeah, got a couple of those myself. First time it was on the landline with the cordless phone handset not working so it wasn't convenient to get them to cancel the Amazon Prime auto renewal that way when she wanted me to use a browser or phone to cancel it so I told her that I could do that myself without her help. I was a little surprised that she suggested I call her back if I couldn't do it myself.

I also discovered that my Amazon Prime trial had ended quite a while ago and I do remember cancelling it myself. I did accept the trial to get free shipping on something I was buying which wasn't that cheap to ship.

Then she called back the next day. If you hit 1 she asks you 'how can I help you'. I said 'you can stop calling me'. There was silence for a long time so I said rather sarcastically, 'have you fallen out of your chair ?' She just hung up and hasn't called again.

I didn't get that one.

[Dave W]

I get many of these automated 'Amazon Prime' phonecalls, which can be ignored if you haven't even got an Amazon Prime account.

There's no need to worry about emails saying a login was noticed from an unusual device - many companies send them out to tip you off in case a scammer logged in, not you.

[John Rumm]

Yeah I have had a few of those. The first time, it said something like we are about to bill for your prime renewal, at £39 quid (or similar), press 1 etc. So I hung up and thought, why bother phoning to tell me its due for renewal?

Then it dawned on me it was probably a precursor for a scam. However I can't see it being that effective since the £39 they claimed to be billing was significantly cheaper that the actual cost - so it was unlikely to get that much response from the many who *do* have prime accounts!

[Tim Streater]

Don't these "Press 1" etc switch you to a premium telephone line ?

[Andy Burns]

How would they do that then?

The only incoming calls you can be charged for are reverse charge calls via the operator, or via 0800-REVERSE

[Tim Streater]

Search me. I just recall that being a scam-style of 20 years ago, is all.

[Andy Burns]

That always was a fake warning ...

[Tim+]

Um, no. Urban myth. You cannot convert a call in progress that you?ve not initiated to a premium rate

Tim

[Tim Streater]

Cue urban mirth.

[John Rumm]

No, since it was an incoming call there is no mechanism to do that.

[mm0fmf]

He probably believed all the Good Times warnings too.

[Graham.]

I thought the scam would be they offer to cancel Prime, and send you a refund, after you have given them your account number sort code, PIN, mothers maiden name, and shoe size.

[Graham.]

You know that John and I know that...

...It's just a pity that any number of jornalists and a few police forces don't.

"Whichever version of the phone call received, the end goal appears to be the same - to get the recipients to press 1 and therefore connect to a premium rate number."

"This is a scam, by pressing 1, you may face a high connection fee and be charged at a premium rate for the call. "

STOP PRESS: THIS ONE IS FROM TRADING STANDARDS! (mind the wrap)

"Also, pressing 1 connects you to a premium rate number that you then start paying for."

"The call often starts with an automated system asking you to press 1, after informing you your account has been hacked. This can either then connect you to someone who will try to get your bank details, or will connect you to a premium rate phone number."

"By pressing 1, people may face a high connection fee and be charged at a premium rate for the call."

Can I stop now?

[John Rumm]

Sure, once you are talking to them, they can try any number of the normal approaches - the refund scam being the obvious one in this case.