Amazon Email Scam – Local Warning Issued

Published on: 8 Jan, 2017
Updated on: 9 Jan, 2017

The Surrey and Sussex neighbourhood alert service has issued a scam warning connection with the popular online retailers Amazon.

They say several reports have been received from victims who have been sent convincing looking emails claiming to be from Amazon.

The spoofed emails from “service@amazon.co.uk” claim recipients have made an order online and mimic an automatic customer email notification.

The scam email claims recipients have ordered an expensive vintage chandelier. Other reported examples include: Bose stereos, iPhone’s and luxury watches.

The emails cleverly state that if recipients haven’t authorised the transaction they can click on the help centre link to receive a full refund. The link leads to an authentic-looking website, which asks victims to confirm their name, address, and bank card information.

Amazon says it will never ask for personal information to be supplied by e-mail and that suspicious e-mails will often contain:

links to websites that look like Amazon.co.uk, but aren’t Amazon.co.uk;
attachments or prompts to install software on your computer;
typos or grammatical errors;
forged (or spoofed) e-mail addresses to make it look like the e-mail is coming from Amazon.co.uk.

More information about identifying suspicious emails claiming to be from Amazon can be found at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201489210