Ed writes…
Are you getting irritating automated calls from Amazon threatening to take payments from your bank account for an Amazon Prime subscription?
“Press 1 to speak to an Amazon agent”.
This is a barefaced scam. Normally when you press ”1”, nothing happens, and you get disconnected.
But one day last week I pressed “1” and was connected to a Chinese-sounding lady who told me my account had been hacked and she would help me to stop the calls and track down the culprit.
I was out walking, but she said she would phone me back. She told me to go to my computer and open a webpage called “Teamviewer”. I was then instructed to download some software.
Luckily I had already Googled “Amazon Prime scam”, which revealed that I was about to have my computer stripped bare of all financial data, passwords etc with a view to raiding my bank account.
I wasted the young lady’s time (and mine) for about ten minutes before accusing her of being, amongst several unprintable things, a common thief, and a filthy scammer.
To my amazement she went on protesting that she was from Amazon and was trying to help me!
If you receive these calls on a mobile phone, they are easy to block. Just go to call history, click on the number and select “block number”.
Amazon is a huge and profitable company and surely has the resources to track down these criminals, who are causing serious damage to the company’s reputation.
Beware Amazon scammers: like being very careful when you order from Amazon not to be tricked into signing up for Prime.