Author Topic: 'Amazon Prime' scam  (Read 2767 times)

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Offline Maik

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'Amazon Prime' scam
« on: Saturday, 07 November, 2020 @ 12:22:13 »
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Amazon Prime customers warned of scam phone calls

Consumers have been warned not to fall prey to fraudsters who are targeting Amazon Prime customers, many of whom became members for the first time during the Covid-19 crisis.

Security experts said fraudsters had been phoning people claiming to be calling from “Amazon Prime security” and saying their Amazon account had been compromised in California, and a series of payments had been made from their account.

Having gained the person’s trust, the fraudster instructed them to download TeamViewer, a brand of remote access software, which was subsequently used to access the victim’s online bank account.

While this is by no means a new fraud, scammers are thought to have taken advantage of the fact that many households have signed up to Amazon Prime since the pandemic hit.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/nov/07/amazon-prime-scam-phone-calls-bank-account

Offline TonyD

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Re: 'Amazon Prime' scam
« Reply #1 on: Saturday, 07 November, 2020 @ 14:50:59 »
Just this last week I've had three encounters with such scams

A telephone call advising I've been automatically signed up for an Amazon Prime account for £79.99, and suggesting I press 1 to accept and go ahead, or press 2 to discuss - complete nonsense of course. I just leave the phone off the hook in the hope it's costing someone some money.

An email advising my Microsoft subscription had been cancelled, and I should expect email to stop later that day, unless I logged in and verified my account beforehand.
Hovering my cursor over the very authentic looking Microsoft logo revealed the link was to a very non-MS URL

Then, just this morning, an email purporting to be from PayPal and advising I was the recipient of a £500 refund.
A refund PayPal had organised following their spotting an unauthorised payment from my account -  and that it was now essential I login and change my password to prevent a repeat.
Again, a very convincing email, and again a very dubious URL when mouse cursor hovered over Login link
And what a novel backstory!! Very plausible. Unfortunately.

Such fishing scams used to be obvious.
Poor grammar, poor Reply-to addresses, etc
But this new batch, with the new feature of addressing you directly by name, instead of "customer" "user" etc, are very convincing

Be careful!

Offline Jolly Roger

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Re: 'Amazon Prime' scam
« Reply #2 on: Sunday, 08 November, 2020 @ 08:34:37 »
Just this last week I've had three encounters with such scams

A telephone call advising I've been automatically signed up for an Amazon Prime account for £79.99, and suggesting I press 1 to accept and go ahead, or press 2 to discuss - complete nonsense of course. I just leave the phone off the hook in the hope it's costing someone some money.

An email advising my Microsoft subscription had been cancelled, and I should expect email to stop later that day, unless I logged in and verified my account beforehand.
Hovering my cursor over the very authentic looking Microsoft logo revealed the link was to a very non-MS URL

Then, just this morning, an email purporting to be from PayPal and advising I was the recipient of a £500 refund.
A refund PayPal had organised following their spotting an unauthorised payment from my account -  and that it was now essential I login and change my password to prevent a repeat.
Again, a very convincing email, and again a very dubious URL when mouse cursor hovered over Login link
And what a novel backstory!! Very plausible. Unfortunately.

Such fishing scams used to be obvious.
Poor grammar, poor Reply-to addresses, etc
But this new batch, with the new feature of addressing you directly by name, instead of "customer" "user" etc, are very convincing

Be careful!

Send these emails to report@phishing.gov.uk in the hope that this Government department can track them down.