What to know about the latest amazon-impostor scams

They may ask for your login info. It’s not a new scam, Bishop notes, but “continues to be prevalent, because, unfortunately, it’s effective.” MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL SCAMS. Many people don’t

remember when their annual payment for Amazon Prime is due, so when customers are told it’s time to pay up, it seems plausible, Bishop says. Scammers know you are probably busy and have a

lot on your mind, she says, so they “are going to find those sorts of cracks in your day to weasel in and try to get you to do something that you shouldn’t.” Last fall, Amazon filed lawsuits

against fraudulent organizations that it alleged impersonated Amazon customer support and sold fake upgrades for Prime Video subscribers. Renewal schemes are on the rise, the company warned

on X.   TECH SUPPORT SCAM. Criminals incorporate the Amazon name in this extremely common scam, in which you’re told there’s a problem with your account, Fetterhoff says. “Then they’ll say,

‘We have someone who can remote on to your computer and take care of it for you.’ And while this person thinks they’re getting all the help in the world, what’s going on is [the scammers]

are charging things or taking their personal information,” which can be sold on the dark web or used to perpetrate other crimes. Bishop notes that if the victim uses similar passwords for

different accounts or is logged in to a bank account, the scammer can do a lot of damage. Older Americans lost $590 million to tech support scams last year, according to the FBI’s latest

Elder Fraud Report.  EMPLOYMENT SCAM. Criminals will pretend to be Amazon job recruiters, offering nonexistent work-from-home jobs. They’ll tell the prospective victim, “We need you to set

up an account and purchase this subscription to get an interview,” Bishop says. Or once you’re offered a job, they may ask for a start-up fee or tell you that you need to buy a “starter kit”

with Amazon.com gift cards. PUBLISHING SCAM. Scammers tout publishing services to authors. “The scammers’ websites are designed to lure authors into paying a fee to publish, and then

deliver substandard services or no services at all,” Amazon warns on its site. Last fall, Amazon sued a group of about 20 people in California, claiming they’d told writers they were

representatives from Amazon Publishing or Kindle Direct Publishing. STOPPING AMAZON-IMPERSONATION SCAMS “We have a zero tolerance policy for any bad actor who’s impersonating our brand,”

Bishop says, adding that the company has an international team of attorneys and investigators working with law enforcement around the world to stop scammers. Last year, Amazon initiated

takedowns of more than 40,000 phishing websites and 10,000 phone numbers impersonating Amazon. The company had some recent crime-fighting successes: Amazon worked in collaboration with

Microsoft and India’s equivalent of the FBI, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to raid and prosecute a ring of more than 70 fraud call centers across India that were impersonating

many businesses, including Amazon and Microsoft, Bishop says. That was the first time Amazon and Microsoft collaborated in this way. It’s a step in the right direction, says Kathy Stokes,

AARP’s director of fraud prevention programs, who believes that collaboration and openness about the scope of the scam crisis are crucial for successful fraud fighting. “It’s going to take

these big brands talking openly about it and being willing to say, ‘Yes, criminals are impersonating [us], and we want you to know, customers, because we don’t want this to happen,’ ” Stokes

says. “Right now, Amazon is the only major brand that’s screaming it from the rooftops, freely. The other ones are still, in my opinion, afraid to associate their brand with [these scams].”

A large part of Amazon’s fraud-prevention strategy is focused on public education: making people aware of the red flags for scams and encouraging the public to report them. “We are

protecting our customers on our store all the time, but these [scams] are happening off our store, and we can only do so much,” Bishop says. The good news? Amazon saw a 15 percent reduction

in the number of reports citing money loss in 2023 compared with the year before. Bishop says that might be attributable to greater consumer awareness of impostor scams.