Excelsior! Academy Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 I log into my email Friday morning and see a purchase for a Playstation gift card on my Amazon account. We do not have a Playstation, nor did we make the purchase. I contacted Amazon and was told another credit card was added to my account on Thursday. (The purchase was made on a Friday.) I checked my bank account, but it hadn't been charged. It was a card no one in our family owns. Apparently someone got access to our Amazon account and purchased two Playstation gift cards. One was cancelled, and one went through. Amazon told me to change my password and their investigation team would contact me in one business day. I was to leave the card attached to my account so they could investigate it. I called Amazon for a second time on Monday, they told me someone would contact me by the end of the business day, but to leave the card attached to my account. "Because I changed my password it would be secure and no one would have access to my account anyway." I called again today. After being told that *I* must've clicked on a spam email or left a computer up so that someone could log into my account, but don't worry because the card has been removed, I am livid. They have also informed me that their site is secure. Oh, and they can't remove the Playstation gift card because the person in question already used the code. What?! 1st..my hubby is in IT and keeps our network secure. And, no, I haven't clicked on any spam emails. 2nd...I am a stay at home mom that doesn't access my account from my "work computer," and if I did I would be likely working not ordering from Amazon. 3rd...I was at the pool and a class with my kiddos on those dates and my phone was with me the entire time and my house was locked, so I doubt someone just snuck in, logged into my account, and ordered a Playstation gift card while I was away. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawana Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 If I understand you correctly, these gift cards are being charged to a credit card belonging to someone else but using your account info? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted June 10, 2015 Author Share Posted June 10, 2015 Yes! I suppose I would be angrier if my actual credit card had been charged, but then I suppose my bank would've stepped in and helped deal with it. The card was added to my account. Why? I am more upset that someone has access to my personal information like address, telephone, purchases, etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 Was the credit card valid? Why in the world would someone add their own personal cc to someone else's account to make a purchase? Something sounds very, very wrong here. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted June 10, 2015 Author Share Posted June 10, 2015 Agreed!! Yes, the card was valid and charged, just under our Amazon account. I am seriously befuddled. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssavings Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 they added their own address and billing address to your account so they could use their card under your account? Why on earth?? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted June 10, 2015 Author Share Posted June 10, 2015 they added their own address and billing address to your account so they could use their card under your account? Why on earth?? No, it was my name and billing address. That is part of the problem. It was a card I don't own, but everything else is "ours." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hypatia. Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 Something similar happened with a different store account of mine, luckily I was online at the time the email notification came in and was able to immediately cancel it. Someone used a stolen CC number, added the card to my account, and purchased an e-giftcard. In this case, I was able to find the contact info of the CC and contact her, let her know her card had been compromised. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 I'd pull my credit report just in case. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 I would write two (2) faxes and send them, free, via http://faxzero.com/ One would go to the President of Amazon and the other would be addressed to the Fraud Department at Amazon. I do not believe the people you have communicated with at Amazon are the appropriate people to be dealing with. I believe that you should ask/demand Amazon to close your current account and transfer all of your purchase history, Wish List, etc., to a new account and that it has a different user name and a different password. GL 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssavings Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 No, it was my name and billing address. That is part of the problem. It was a card I don't own, but everything else is "ours." How does that work? I thought that credit cards couldn't be processed if the billing zipcode doesn't match up? That's terrifying... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 That's bizarre. I have to say of any company I have ever dealt with, they have been hands down the most responsive with any issue. They often go above and beyond my expectations. It's frustrating when crap like that happens though. I totally get that. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 What a headache! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan in TN Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 Well poop on them. They are stupid. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK_Mom4 Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 It sounds to me like a two-hop credit card scam. Bad Guy uses stolen credit card info (billing zip and card number) from Victim #1 and adds it to Amazon account for Victim #2. Bad guy buys something electronic (playstation card in this case), resells the code to some unsuspecting person (Clueless #3) who then uses the download code. Victim #2 usually never notices the Amazon purchase. People who do lots of transactions with Amazon often just ignore the emails. If Victim #1 complains to their credit card company about the charge, it gets investigated and comes back looking like Victim #2 stole the card and put it on their Amazon account. Bad Guy runs away laughing with the money from Clueless #3. All Bad Guy needs is a 24 hour head-start while people try to figure this out and it becomes almost impossible to track a Playstation code back thru the transactions unless you are a specialist. You are Victim #2 in this scenario. Bad Guy got your Amazon account and password somehow. I would see if I could track down that leak - usually these are key loggers on your own computers, but it could have been a purchase "processed by Amazon" that you purchased from a third company. The stealing of your Amazon account probably didn't happen during those dates, BTW - it could have been months before and Bad Guy just got around to using it...... edited to make the names more clear..... 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cottonwood Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 ug! Sometimes scammers do little things in an acct they have hacked, of little consequence to you...at first. If the password doesn't change or the account isn't otherwise changed up, they go further. I just can't think of how they would benefit. They can't get your bank info, can they? I agree that I'd have the account closed. Sorry :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valley Girl Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 I had EXACTLY the same thing happen a couple of months back. Someone tried to purchase a Playstation gift card on my account using a credit card they added but which I had never applied for. (Fortunately, in my case Amazon flagged the purchase and cancelled it. However, they never bothered to notify me. I found it by chance.) I spent hours on the phone with customer service and various banks trying to track down info because it looked as though the card had been opened in my name. Customer service elevated the problem to the fraud dept. However, the fraud dept. refused to give me anything other than a canned response that didn't address any of my many questions. I was VERY upset, put a freeze on my credit and filed a police report for identity theft. Finally, I wrote a long e-mail outlining everything that happened and sent it directly to the CEO at Amazon. Within a day or so I got a response from someone on the staff who got to the bottom of what happened. Send an e-mail with all the details to this address: <<edited out>> I was extremely impressed with the response after I did that. Good luck with this. It's frustrating to have this happen. It's even more frustrating when you get a runaround. ETA: I didn't want to invite spam by leaving the address up. But it's easy enough to find if you search for articles on Amazon customer service. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cottonwood Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 How much was the purchase? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 Thank you for your suggestions. I will fax and email and request a new account. The amount was only $19.99 billed 2x. One was stopped, one wasn't so only one $19.99 charge was complete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldberry Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Thank you for your suggestions. I will fax and email and request a new account. The amount was only $19.99 billed 2x. One was stopped, one wasn't so only one $19.99 charge was complete. That's even more freaky. Why would someone go through that much trouble for $20? Could it have been some kind of mistake? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 I'd pull my credit report just in case. I would write two (2) faxes and send them, free, via http://faxzero.com/ One would go to the President of Amazon and the other would be addressed to the Fraud Department at Amazon. I do not believe the people you have communicated with at Amazon are the appropriate people to be dealing with. I believe that you should ask/demand Amazon to close your current account and transfer all of your purchase history, Wish List, etc., to a new account and that it has a different user name and a different password. GL Will do both. Thank you for suggesting these!! I hadn't thought of changing accounts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 It sounds to me like a two-hop credit card scam. Bad Guy uses stolen credit card info (billing zip and card number) from Victim #1 and adds it to Amazon account for Victim #2. Bad guy buys something electronic (playstation card in this case), resells the code to some unsuspecting person (Clueless #3) who then uses the download code. Victim #2 usually never notices the Amazon purchase. People who do lots of transactions with Amazon often just ignore the emails. If Victim #1 complains to their credit card company about the charge, it gets investigated and comes back looking like Victim #2 stole the card and put it on their Amazon account. Bad Guy runs away laughing with the money from Clueless #3. All Bad Guy needs is a 24 hour head-start while people try to figure this out and it becomes almost impossible to track a Playstation code back thru the transactions unless you are a specialist. You are Victim #2 in this scenario. Bad Guy got your Amazon account and password somehow. I would see if I could track down that leak - usually these are key loggers on your own computers, but it could have been a purchase "processed by Amazon" that you purchased from a third company. The stealing of your Amazon account probably didn't happen during those dates, BTW - it could have been months before and Bad Guy just got around to using it...... edited to make the names more clear..... Whoa. This has to be it! Couldn't Bad Guy use his talents doing a real job? I'll have dh check for a key logger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 ug! Sometimes scammers do little things in an acct they have hacked, of little consequence to you...at first. If the password doesn't change or the account isn't otherwise changed up, they go further. I just can't think of how they would benefit. They can't get your bank info, can they? I agree that I'd have the account closed. Sorry :( I immediately changed the password, and no, I don't think my bank info is attached just my debit card. According to Amazon only the last 4 numbers would've been available. We do pay with Paypal occasionally, but don't have our bank account linked to it either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamaraby Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Instead of faxing, you could go the Executive Email Carpet Bomb route - http://consumerist.com/2007/05/11/how-to-launch-an-executive-email-carpet-bomb/ The key is a clear, concise, well written letter to go with it. Be specific about what you want to happen in order to resolve your issue. I'd probably go with something like Lanny has suggested. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssavings Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Whoa. This has to be it! Couldn't Bad Guy use his talents doing a real job? I'll have dh check for a key logger. Seriously. I mean, this is a LOT of effort for a total of, what $20 in payoff? Scary - I'm glad you caught it, though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 I had EXACTLY the same thing happen a couple of months back. Someone tried to purchase a Playstation gift card on my account using a credit card they added but which I had never applied for. (Fortunately, in my case Amazon flagged the purchase and cancelled it. However, they never bothered to notify me. I found it by chance.) I spent hours on the phone with customer service and various banks trying to track down info because it looked as though the card had been opened in my name. Customer service elevated the problem to the fraud dept. However, the fraud dept. refused to give me anything other than a canned response that didn't address any of my many questions. I was VERY upset, put a freeze on my credit and filed a police report for identity theft. Finally, I wrote a long e-mail outlining everything that happened and sent it directly to the CEO at Amazon. Within a day or so I got a response from someone on the staff who got to the bottom of what happened. Send an e-mail with all the details to this address: [email protected]<script cf-hash='f9e31' type="text/javascript"> /* */</script> I was extremely impressed with the response after I did that. Good luck with this. It's frustrating to have this happen. It's even more frustrating when you get a runaround. Thank you for the email and your post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cottonwood Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 That's even more freaky. Why would someone go through that much trouble for $20? Could it have been some kind of mistake? It could be to see if victim 1 or 2 (if the scenario is correct) notices. If they do, they'll change passwords or cancel cards, etc... to avoid it happening again. The thief might try again later with a bigger hit, hoping it goes through. If no one noticed the small, common charge, he might get lucky when trying for a bigger pay off. He'll score that one big score and move on to the next victim. This happened to my Paypal account 13 yrs ago, two months after opening it. What a hassle to untangle. They never found the person. I didn't notice a $20 paypal charge as both my DH and I heavily used it. If he didn't recognize a transaction, he figured I did and vice versa. Two weeks later, there was a $2300.00 charge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK_Mom4 Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 It could be to see if victim 1 or 2 (if the scenario is correct) notices. If they do, they'll change passwords or cancel cards, etc... to avoid it happening again. The thief might try again later with a bigger hit, hoping it goes through. If no one noticed the small, common charge, he might get lucky when trying for a bigger pay off. He'll score that one big score and move on to the next victim. This happened to my Paypal account 13 yrs ago, two months after opening it. What a hassle to untangle. They never found the person. I didn't notice a $20 paypal charge as both my DH and I heavily used it. If he didn't recognize a transaction, he figured I did and vice versa. Two weeks later, there was a $2300.00 charge. Yeah - the next transaction would be several thousand dollars, billed to that stolen credit card number that was put on the OP's account. It would be from some fake "storefront" for some not-particularly-noticeable item. Also, these crooks don't do this just once for a $20 profit. They do 100 accounts in the first pass. If even half go through, that's a cool $1000. And if they get a clean shot at even 10 of those to try the second transaction, now Bad Guy runs off with $100K or more. Not bad for about an hour's work once you have the stolen cards and accounts/passwords. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cammie Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 I had a wierd Amazon thing happen last week. Items I didn't select were added to my cart. They were coloring books for adults (not X-rated - just more detailed). I am SURE I didn't add them to the cart and no one in my family did either. I noticed it because I was in the process of researching and ordering quite a few things. Weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
December Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 I had a weird Amazon thing where this guy in Norway ordered a book for himself and it was sent to me instead with a note that it was gift from him. How does that even happen?? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest shahaodou Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 they have been hands down the most responsive with any issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valley Girl Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Thank you for the email and your post. I just looked up my email. My incident happened in February. I was told that it would be used as a "use case" in improving their response to this sort of situation. Looks like they still need to work on that given the initial response you received. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katy Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 That's bizarre. I have to say of any company I have ever dealt with, they have been hands down the most responsive with any issue. They often go above and beyond my expectations. It's frustrating when crap like that happens though. I totally get that. I haven't had that exact situation, but I've had several situations where I had to ask for a manager several times before I was transferred to someone in the United States who understood a problem and took care of it. Recently every time I've initially had to contact someone I get someone in India who clearly doesn't understand what the problem is or how to resolve it. IE: I ordered some essential oils which were marked Prime. Some were sent Prime, some weren't. I specifically wanted to know why and was told that food grade lavender is a hazardous material. So why wasn't it marked that it couldn't be sent with two day shipping? I didn't want a credit, I wanted them to change the listing for the product so it wasn't false advertising, which is illegal. The CS reps in India just could not comprehend the concept that false advertising is wrong and that Amazon needed to change the listing. They were sure the whole incident was my fault, or at least they might be able to talk circles of confusion around me until I dropped it instead of actually fixing the issue. Rated my customer service experience as completely unacceptable though, and I was on the phone with an American in less than five minutes. Who agreed it was strange, got the listing changed in less than an hour, and got that particular lavender removed from the hazardous materials list in something like 11 days, and then followed up with me to let me know that. I think their standards for outsourcing have greatly decreased in the past year or so. I never had a bad customer service experience with them before that. Sure, they might screw something up in previous years, but they acknowledged it and fixed it to my satisfaction without arguing or obfuscation before. Lately their customer service sucks. I've had two issues in the past six months and both times I interacted with them I found initially completely obnoxious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daria Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 How does that work? I thought that credit cards couldn't be processed if the billing zipcode doesn't match up? That's terrifying... You can use a credit card with a different zip you just need to enter the zip. I've used my work's credit card to order things on my Amazon account so that I could use prime Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fraidycat Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 I agree that Amazon customer service is not what it used to be. It has been going down hill over the past couple years, unfortunately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anne in CA Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 Amazon has been waging an expensive war against small retail businesses. Amazon is losing money at a scary rate, they have to cut corners somewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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