Recently a Scamicide reader received an email informing her that her Amazon Prime Membership was due for renewal, but that it could not be done because the credit card tied to the account was no longer able to be used, threatening to suspend her Amazon Prime account unless a new credit card was provided.  This is a common scam in which the scammers attempt to lure people into providing their credit card information or Amazon user name and password to the scammer posing as an Amazon employee.

But how do you know if you get such an email whether or not the email is legitimate?  For starters, the email address of the sender of the email to the Scamicide reader was a long convoluted email address that had no relation to Amazon.  The best course of action if you receive such an email and you have any thoughts that it might be legitimate you should communicate directly with Amazon their website or mobile app rather than click on a link in the email that purports to take you to Amazon.

TIPS

While this particular email did not appear very official and did not contain the Amazon logo, other Amazon phishing emails use the Amazon logo and are written with acceptable grammar and punctuation.  Some of these phishing emails, which in the past had poor grammar and spelling having been sent from scammers in a country where English is not their native language are now, through AI able to appear entirely legitimate.  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 real 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

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/