The Latest Amazon Scam That You Should Be Aware Of
“If you receive this call, hang up immediately.”
That’s what the police have been warning Amazon customers lately because of a recent telephone scam. Here’s how it works:
Users are receiving automated calls that claim to be from Amazon’s customer service. Once they pick up they’re informed there has been suspicious activity coming from their account. To be more specific, they’re told that someone has been using their personal details to sign up for an Amazon Prime subscription.
After all the setup has taken place, the automated voice asks the users to press 1 to cancel the transaction and get more information. Concerned for their security, many victims fall in the trap and continue the call.
Pressing 1 will eventually lead to a human operator who will reinforce the privacy concerns and try to convince the victims to install an app on their computer called Team Viewer to supposedly fix a security flaw, but in reality, it does exactly the opposite. This software will grant the cybercriminals full access to all the data the victims store in their devices.
Once they complete this step, the rest is history. Financial details, private information. You name it, they got it.
According to Action Fraud, the national reporting center for fraud and cybercrime in the UK, more than 200 people became victims of this scam resulting in more than £400,000 in losses combined.
What To Do?
If you find yourself in this situation, here’s what you have to do. First of all, hang up the call. These kinds of reports are never done via telephone so if you hear Amazon or Google or any other company contacting you directly about fraud, it’s most likely that the call itself is the actual fraud.
This technique is pretty common and effective for hackers and if it doesn’t happen via phone it could happen via email or text message. Always make sure that the receiving messages are coming from the official source, and if they’re asking for payment or personal information, that’s your clue to report them for fraud.
“If you’ve received an unexpected phone call, or other communication, stop and take a minute to think about whether an organisation would get in touch with you out of the blue in this way. Instead, contact them directly using a known email or phone number.”
Pauline Smith, head of Action Fraud.
If you have been a victim of any similar activity, you should report it to Action Fraud (0300 123 2040) or your local cybercrime entity. There are plenty of online fraud reporting tools at your disposal.
- For European users here’s a list of websites that should be able to help.
- For US citizens here’s a useful website to report scams and frauds.
No More Scams!
If you want to avoid any future scams, you have to stay alert. There’s no reason to be paranoid about it, but being aware of the most common cyberattacks is a step in the right direction. You are the only one who can stop them from happening, but we wanted to give you an extra hand in cybersecurity with the Online.io solution.
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