PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — An Amazon customer locked out of her account said she was conned by a fake customer service number and is warning others to keep them from falling for the same scam.
Paula, a Florida resident, said she lost more than $1,000 after calling an Amazon customer service number she found on a Google search.
But the person on the other end of the line turned out to be an imposter and didn’t work for Amazon at all.
Paula said the imposter helped her get back into her Amazon account but also told her she needed to verify her identity by going through the steps to purchase $1,000 in Amazon gift cards. She suspects the imposter hacked her account to access the gift cards.
“Nothing is getting charged to your account this is for verification on our side,” Paula said the imposter told her.
WFTS called the same number as Paula. The man who answered would not say where he was located or give the name of his business.
An Amazon spokesman said in an email, “We monitor for suspicious activity, including gift card activity, and work with law enforcement and consumer protection agencies to investigate and take action on bad actors… A member of our team has reached out to the customer to get additional information.”
Paula said she understands her money is long gone but hopes by sharing her story others won’t make the same costly mistake.
Experts say you can avoid falling for one of these scams by always using a company’s official website to find a customer service number — and avoid searching for contact information on Google and other search engines.
This story was originally published by Jackie Callaway on WFTS .
