You think it’s never going to happen to you – until it does.

Red Flags for this scam:
requests for personal information
urgent or threatening language
link to a site different from the alleged company that contacted you

Amazon Scam
This scam involved a resident under stress, urgency, and a link to a bogus site.

One of our residents fell for the Amazon scam in a weak moment when he had a lot on his mind and was in a hurry. The victim bought a few items from Amazon and opted for the free one-month Amazon Prime membership. The resident had planned to unsubscribe so when he received a call from “David” (with an Asian accent) at Amazon, informing him of the automatic $39.99 charge to his account, a call from Amazon did not seem suspicious.

In order for the resident to receive the $39.99 refund, he was instructed to go to a fake Amazon website and enter his password to get connected to the “Amazon server” so that “David” (with Asian accent) can download the refund form for the resident. The victim asked why David couldn’t just email the form. David said that it had to be done online and for the resident to enter a code, then download a software program called “Team Viewer” so he could point to where he wanted the victim to click.

Amazon Refund appeared and the victim added personal and bank information. To generate a “virtual” transaction, the next step was to enter $40. A message appeared indicating Amazon would be refunding $4,000! “David” yelled “What have you done? This is a big problem and you need to fix it.”

The victim does not do online banking so David guided the victim to his bank’s website to enroll in online banking. More personal information was requested and victim decided to go no further. Victim realized that this was a scam and hung up the phone, closed out screens and turned off computer.

Victim went directly to his bank and was able to confirm that nothing had been processed. Bank blocked the checking account and opened a new account. Companies that were involved in automatic payments and direct deposits were contacted. Social Security had to be contacted to update direct deposit. A lot of work.

Upon returning from the bank, victim opened the computer and noticed “Team Viewer” on the desktop. The victim contacted a friend who immediately came over and uninstalled the software that came from Germany.

Lesson here: Just hang up! Call a friend or family member for help.

Click here to see a video describing a similar scam.

Click here to see information from Amazon.

Click here for an AARP article “7 Behaviors That Can Make You A Target for Scammers”

Mary Cranston
Alerts Program Coordinator
alerteditor@sclhwatch.org