By John North
Better Business Bureau
Amazon is a popular shopping venue for many. In fact, eight out of ten US shoppers are Amazon customers. US shoppers place an average of 72 orders per year on Amazon. Interestingly, 56 percent of consumers start their product searches online on Amazon. And, Amazon’s average daily sales revenue in 2023 was $1.6 billion, for a total revenue of $575 billion. With billions of dollars of sales happening every day, scammers are bound to target Amazon shoppers.
To protect yourself from these scams, the Better Business Bureau offers these tips:
Keep in mind, Amazon will never call asking you to disclose personal information or offering refunds you aren’t expecting.
Avoid clicking on links in emails or texts. If you receive an email from Amazon, ensure the email address is legitimate. Attachments from Amazon will say “Attachment(s) protected by Amazon.”
Double-check links before clicking on them. Amazon will never send you a link to an IP address (a string of numbers). Look for added letters or numbers and misspelled words in the web address.
Login to your Amazon account and review it before acting. If you receive a message claiming you have an order on the way that you didn’t order or you need to update your payment information, review Your Orders on your Amazon account before acting on these claims. These messages are oftentimes scammers trying to get you to click the links so they can steal your information.
Trust your gut. If you receive communication with links that seem suspicious, don’t open them.
Enable two-step verification on your Amazon account. This adds another level of safety to your account and makes it hard for scammers to hack you.
Be wary of communication with grammatical errors or typos.
Avoid deals that seem too good to be true. Scammers may use counterfeit products to deceive consumers into purchasing lower-quality replicas of their favorite products.
Thoroughly look at reviews. Scammers can take over actual reviews of products and replace some of the information to match their products. When looking at reviews ensure the caption and photos match and the review makes sense.
Be wary of third-party sellers. Third-party sellers may use phishing, review hijacking and bait and switch tactics to steal money or information. Always double-check if your product is being sold directly from Amazon or a third-party seller.
Be wary of social media communication about Amazon. If you receive messages on social media claiming you won a prize from Amazon or someone needs you to buy them a gift card, it’s probably a scam. Scammers lure you to buy Amazon gift cards and then use the funds before you know what happened.
Look out for brushing scams, which happen when scammers send you items you didn’t purchase. These scammers send you low-cost items and then use your name to write reviews for their products and increase their ratings.
When shopping online, it’s important to be cautious. If you feel you’ve been scammed, report it to BBB Scam Tracker at BBB.org/scamtracker. If you’re unsure and need assistance, contact Amazon support. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
