Shopping on Amazon, has been popular for a long time, but particularly during the continuing pandemic shopping on Amazon has increased dramatically and with so many people shopping on Amazon, scammers are using Amazon as the basis for a variety of scams. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Amazon based scams have increased 500% in the last year I have warned you many times over the years about scammers who send various types of phishing emails which purport to be from Amazon attempting to lure you into either clicking on links which can download malware, such as ransomware or providing personal information that can be used to make you a victim of identity theft.
I recently received an Amazon phishing email that is copied below. The email below is typical of many of those presently circulating. The latest Amazon phishing scam starts with an email that appears to come from Amazon informing you that there has been suspicious activity on the credit card tied to your account and that your failure to verify your account has resulted in your account being restricted. Obviously anyone receiving such an email would certainly be concerned that their account has been hacked and easily lured into clicking on the link provided in the email (which I have disarmed) to remedy the situation.
This particular phishing email is very sophisticated. The grammar is relatively good without glaring errors and the logo used appears legitimate, but it is very simple to counterfeit a legitimate appearing logo. Often a telltale sign that the email is a part of a scam is that the email address of the sender has absolutely nothing to do with Amazon and that was the situation in this case. All legitimate Amazon emails end in amazon.com. In addition, if you hovered your mouse over the link provided you would see that where it would send you had no relation to Amazon.
It is also noteworthy that neither your name or account number ever appears in the email.
Here is a copy of the email presently being circulated
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TIPS
While this is a very legitimate appearing email that uses the Amazon logo and is written with acceptable grammar and punctuation, it is clearly a scam. Never click on a link in an email or text message or provide personal information unless you have confirmed that the email or text message is legitimate. The telephone number to call if you suspect Amazon related fraud is 866-216-1075 or you can call their customer service number 888-280-4331 Never call the numbers that appears in phishing emails.
Also, because any of us can be scammed, it is a good idea to use dual factor authentication whenever possible to protect your various accounts so that even if someone actually had your password they would not be able to access your account. In order to set up dual factor authentication for your Amazon account use this link. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=G3PWZPU52FKN7PW4
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide was cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to free receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is sign up for free using this link. https://scamicide.com/scam-of-the-day/