Amazon ‘Refund’ Email Scam
Today, I got an email, purporting to be from Amazon thanking me for purchasing a Canon EOS 5D DSLR Camera for the sum total of $3,429.30. Obviously, I did not purchase an EOS 5D, a camera that was released 16 years ago. Anyway, I have been around the online block many times, so I knew this was an obvious scam, I have ordered enough stuff from Amazon to know the Amazon confirmation Email format, and this Email was not it. Although, I did check my Amazon account, just to be safe, not that I needed to as I received the Email on my ‘webmaster’ address that I use to manage my employer’s domain registrations.
I’m assuming they got my name from the WHOIS on one of the domains that are registered under my name, that is the only place where my name is linked to my employer’s webmaster Email address. I am 100% sure that I did not create an Amazon account with a work Email address, and if I did, it would not have been the Email address this scam message was sent to, my main work Email is not published online.
Of course, me being me, I did not call the number, instead, I searched Google for 1-850-919-3353 and I found that this is a variation of a refund scam. This is why “In-case you require any change in order or like to cancel we recommend giving us call immediately” on the aforementioned number appears prominently near the top of the message, hoping that the recipient of this message will call and get talked into divulging personal and financial information, allowing remote access to their computer, or saying that you need to purchase gift cards to cancel the order, which should be an immediate red flag.
I hope I would not have to say this, but never call any numbers shown in the Email, instead, visit https://www.amazon.com/hz/contact-us/ (don’t click this, type it, manually), just because the text says amazon.com, that does not mean that the hyperlink attached to the text goes to amazon.com. You will need to log in to your Amazon account to access this page, like most online retailers, Amazon doesn’t make it easy to find a phone number, but on this page, you can initiate a text chat, or request a callback. Even if the sender appears to be amazon.com, don’t trust it, it’s not hard to spoof Email addresses.
I publish the phone number in the hope that anyone searching for this number will find this blog and not get taken in by these scammers. Never take anything you see on the Internet at face value, do your due diligence to confirm anything you receive in an Email, especially Emails about orders you did not place.