Second Amazon account?

[copyrite]

I never even looked at reviews of any of the items I received, much less considered leaving one.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by copyrite

I never even looked at reviews of any of the items I received, much less considered leaving one.

Sorry for any confusion.

I needed a new umbrella last year, so I picked one based in part on the large number of rave reviews for verified purchases. It opened inverted the very first time I used it.

Now I think I know how it got all those reviews.

I have not been getting unexpected packages.

[haertig]

Sounds like you may need a social media nerd to assist you in getting this published on Facebook (or wherever) so it "goes viral" - whatever that term is for people with too much time on their hands drawing a ridiculous amount of attention to something. Try to get the Social Justice Warriors involved too, if you can imply that one of the items you received is offensive to you because you're transgender or something. The story should spread like wildfire after that. Embarrass Amazon. That's probably the only way to end it.

The above was tongue-in-cheek, obviously, but still based on a technique that works. If you don't get an appropriate response from a one-on-one contact with a company, turn it into a many-on-one situation against that company. Local TV stations sometimes have slow days, and maybe they'd do one of their "human interest" stories about this Amazon situation. If Amazon ends up doing something negative to your real account, I'd definitely go this "wider exposure" route. It's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

Buying gift cards with stolen credit cards? That may make it harder to identify/deal with the fraud.

Originally Posted by Catlady

Not really, unless the gift card purchases are all being made to different credit cards, but even then, Amazon would have a record of multiple cards attached to an account. And why waste gift cards on the rather odd items that are going to other addresses.

I can buy Amazon (and other) gift cards in quite a few local stores. I asked one store clerk and was told the store does not automatically connect a gift card with the credit card used to purchase it. If required, i.e. a warrant was served, they could dig through their records to make such a connection but hadn't been required to do so yet. This conversation was after a bit of a local scandal when people were stealing gift cards and reselling them. They weren't activated so were useless but when some homeless looking person was selling a gift card outside the mall -- I was given this card and would prefer to have some cash -- a surprising number of people shelled out.

And yes, I do like chatting with store staff when the lineups are short. Show interest and they are willing to share the weirdest bits of information. It helps to understand just how easy and useful social engineering is to hackers.

[Catlady]

Here's one more article about the scam--it's called "brushing." Who knew?

[copyrite]

Thanks, Catlady. Fingers crossed, they're done with me and moved on to someone else.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by copyrite

Thanks, Catlady. Fingers crossed, they're done with me and moved on to someone else.

Hopefully not me! One of my recent Amazon purchases was shipped direct from China ...

[copyrite]

Let's hope not!

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Here's one more article about the scam--it's called "brushing." Who knew?

There was a short mention of it on NPR's Weekend Edition this morning.

[Bookpossum]

I have just gone through having my card used for an unauthorised purchase in $US, and by a strange coincidence, it happened a few days after I purchased something from Amazon Australia that was shipped directly from China. So I had to cancel the card and get a new one, which has now arrived. Meanwhile the bank only took a day or so to check out the charge, and have refunded me the money.

So I feel lucky that I escaped with just minor inconvenience. I did write to Amazon who of course assured me of how watertight their systems are, but as they don’t offer PayPal, they won’t be getting any more custom from me. A pity, as I am very pleased with my purchase, a good quality camera backpack.

I shall be keeping a very close watch on my credit card charges from now on! Luckily, this happened just before the close of the card for the month, so I was checking everything to separate personal stuff from household stuff.

[copyrite]

From the above link:

The scam is known as "brushing." An online seller – usually overseas – purchases their own products through fake buyer accounts they've created. The products are shipped to a real address. Then, the seller writes a positive review of their items from the fake buyer account. "The positive reviews are like gold," retail security expert Brian Kilcourse said. "People are always looking for a new hole in the structure at Amazon to be able to put more fake positive reviews." In a statement to CBS News, Amazon said they investigate every report of customers receiving unsolicited packages and will ban all vendors and reviewers who abuse the reviews system.

I think I suffered a side effect from this nonsense... Amazon appears to have deleted all product reviews under my account from before August of last year when I first reported to them that this had happened. I noticed this when my most recent Kindle book review went live and was looking back in my history. Oh well if that's the most damage that was done, I guess it's not too bad. The mystery packages stopped coming, and according to Experian there's been no weird activity.

[crane3]

I had a puzzling experience with Amazon recently & thought the package I got was a scam as the senderwas Walmart. However, I had ordered a set of pans from Amazon (don't remember who the "seller" was) which was the package I received.

Evidently, the seller had ordered the set of pans from Walmart & had them send the pan set to me! Kind of interesting that the ceramic lined pan set is by Tramontina which I've seen only at Walmart previously.

[cadele]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I have just gone through having my card used for an unauthorised purchase in $US, and by a strange coincidence, it happened a few days after I purchased something from Amazon Australia that was shipped directly from China. So I had to cancel the card and get a new one, which has now arrived. Meanwhile the bank only took a day or so to check out the charge, and have refunded me the money.

So I feel lucky that I escaped with just minor inconvenience. I did write to Amazon who of course assured me of how watertight their systems are, but as they don’t offer PayPal, they won’t be getting any more custom from me. A pity, as I am very pleased with my purchase, a good quality camera backpack.

I shall be keeping a very close watch on my credit card charges from now on! Luckily, this happened just before the close of the card for the month, so I was checking everything to separate personal stuff from household stuff.

I find those prepaid Visa type cards useful for these type of situations where you don't feel happy to use your usual credit card. Only putting a small amount on or enough to cover a specific purchase, but no way for anyone nefarious to spend up on the card.

Amazon is one of the few places I am happy to have my credit card number retained (so far so good...) and I will always choose PayPal over any other options available.

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by cadele

I find those prepaid Visa type cards useful for these type of situations where you don't feel happy to use your usual credit card. Only putting a small amount on or enough to cover a specific purchase, but no way for anyone nefarious to spend up on the card.

Amazon is one of the few places I am happy to have my credit card number retained (so far so good...) and I will always choose PayPal over any other options available.

Good idea about the prepaid card. I would certainly have used Paypal, but it wasn't on offer, at any rate by Amazon in Australia. So I won't be doing business with them again.