Fraudsters like to use this little trick!
They pretend to be Amazon, write to you and claim that someone has misused your Amazon account to buy expensive goods.
In this case an Old Pulteney 23 year old Bourbon Cask Malt Whiskey worth €265 plus shipping. In the same breath, they also state that they noticed that there was unlawful access, which is why your account has now been blocked as a precautionary measure. Nice story, none of it is true.
It's a bait. This bogus argument is used to lure you to a fake website. The fraudsters pull out all the stops: the Amazon logo is used, Amazon's invoice structure has been replicated and even the sender's name has been manipulated and the term "customer service" is used as the sender. You read in the email:
Hello,
due to several controversies during the order placement, your account has been temporarily restricted by the security system.
There may have been unauthorized access to your account. In order to re-activate account access, identity verification as the primary account holder is essential.
Instructions on verification can be found at the end of this notification
Two elements are still interesting at this point: In the email, a “Süleyman Kayacan” is stated as the recipient of the goods. Of course, this is also fictitious; it suggests that “foreigners cheat” and by mentioning this name, a racism trigger is used to make the content of the argument credible. We have already found a number of emails of this type ( compare ).
What is new at this point is the whiskey as a supposedly purchased product; as a rule, this type of phishing email usually involves smartphones.
Phishing!
This email is of course a phishing scam. Both this variant and the many similarly structured emails refer to websites that ask you to enter personal data. In these cases, our antivirus software the web address directly, indicating that it was a phishing web address: The following
applies here: The alleged verification process is a trap! Fraudsters only want to access valid data from Amazon users.
What you can do!
If you suspect that an email or website is fake for phishing purposes, please feel free to forward it to us via [email protected] . We're looking at it. By the way, Amazon would also be happy if you forward the email to [email protected] .
First of all, it is important to pay attention to email addresses or URLs. These are a first, important tip. However, sender email addresses can also be forged! If you are unsure whether it is a phishing attack, you can simply log in to the actual homepage of the alleged sender, for example at www.amazon.de.
If data is really needed, you will be asked to enter it there. If you have already fallen for a phishing attack, it is important to immediately change all passwords and PINs used and to make the credit card or bank details unusable, for example by blocking them.
You should also carry out a detailed security check on the affected laptop, smartphone, etc. and file a report with the police. Delete the email and under no circumstances click on any links in it. If you still want to check your Amazon account to be on the safe side, enter “amazon.de” manually in the address bar of the web browser and log in to the real website with your access data. You will then see that no authentication was necessary!
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )