My Amazon Account Was Hacked! But I Stopped The Fraud and Now I'm Stuck...

[barkley]

....and that's what happened with my account. A refund in the form of a gift card was issued for toilet paper (who returns toilet paper!?) and two items that were shipped to a different address. Now that I have my subscription items set to ship, I got an e-mail from Amazon that says that they noticed that I filed a "claim" saying I didn't receive items in the past so they want me to confirm my address. That just irritated me all the more because I have been telling them over and over that I *DID* receive the items and the claim was NOT a legitimate claim and needs to be voided.

You could load gift cards to the account as you use them keeping the balance of gift cards approx at the amount they need to claw back in case they ever get around to it. After your Prime membership is up I would set up a new account under a new email and essentially let the other one go dormant.

Alternatively you can YOLO and spend it and they can bill you for it if they want it back but if that makes you feel bad or scared don’t do it. Personally I think you’ve done more than you need to do and if Amazon doesn’t want their money back you certainly don’t need to take time out of your days anymore to try to force them to. Only you can decide if you want to spend it or not. (And no, they aren’t going to compensate you for your time in this disaster. Your time is worth $0 to them.)

this is the reason i only use my amazon/chase credit card for amazon purchases-in fact i use it only for amazon purchases. i initially got it b/c they offered a NICE sign up amount and i figured with the 5% rewards it would save me some money on recurring/holiday purchases. little did i know how fast chase can resolve an amazon issue when they are pulled into the mix. i only buy stuff fulfilled by amazon or that they put their guarantee on so on 2 separate occasions, like the op has experienced-i went round and round w/amazon trying to resolve an issue and i finally threw my hands in the air and called chase to dispute the charges. in both cases it took the initial phone call w/a chase rep getting the info and asking me if they could research it and get back to me before filing the official dispute-and in less than 24 hours the charges were reversed and amazon gifted me with separate gift cards on my account 'for your inconvenience in unsuccessfully attempting to resolve this directly with our representatives'.

me thinks chase sez 'jump' and amazon sez 'how high?'.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Have you tried contacting someone at corporate?

Courtesy of www.elliott.org https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/amazon/
Email Contacts
ecr-replies@amazon.com

Social Media Contacts
Facebook
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START with the primary contact. Do not go right to the top:

Executive Contacts
Primary Contact
Dave Clark
SVP, Worldwide Operations and Customer Service at Amazon
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
dave@amazon.com

Secondary Contact
Mike Roth
Vice President, North America Operations at Amazon.com
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
mroth@amazon.com

Chief Executive
Jeff Bezos
President
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
jeff@amazon.com

 

[cvjw]

Just use your credit card for your online purchases until you get the gift card situation straightened out. I would not spend a gift card balance that I know isn’t mine. At some point, amazon will figure out that the returns were fraudulent. I would just leave the balance there until they do.

 

[Anthony1971]

I had similar happen where someone used all my gift cards. I caught it called Amazon and they were able to restore all within under 2 hours there fraud department was amazing..... My story was different as I could not see the email address.... to this day I do not know how they did it but amazon was able to figure it out.
Under your setting there is a Two step verification -- call Amazon they will help you if needed-- where they send you a text with an Access number before you type your password in I strongly suggest using this. Most banks now require it but all banks that I know of have this available as well... You can make an exception for the device you always sign on with so you do not need the text. Changing your password helps anytime but this way you will always get a text when someone even tries to access your account.

 

[bianca]

I had the EXACT same thing happen to me in April. It took a week of solid phone calls to Amazon to fix it. Their customer service department was the WORST. I must have spent 20 hours on the phone cleaning this mess up. I contacted AMAZON immediately after I received the first e-mail saying I had received a credit and explained to them that my account obviously had been hacked, as I was already using the items supposedly being returned. Initially, they refused to do anything. I kept after them, and about 5 days after the initial "credit", the fraudster started to spend the credited money by purchasing downloadable documents (as a trial). Only after he/she started to SPEND the money, did Amazon step in ....... after 5 days of me shouting from the rooftops. My account had to be shut down. They promised they would call when it was ready to re-boot ..... they didn't. The whole thing was a complete disaster. The account is fixed now, but I haven't ordered anything from Prime now in over two months. It left such a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[TreeFalls]

I agree to do the chat feature. I ended up with extra money from them once (A package got lost, they refunded my money, then the package eventually arrived.) In that case, the chat person said just to keep the refund because it was a hassle to fix. I saved the chat conversation in case they tried to bill me again later, they never did.

 

[runwad]

I can't do the 2 step Verification because my kids log on and use the account too. I just make sure to always delete my credit card off the site.I guess that's all I can do.

 

[kristenrice]

I had the EXACT same thing happen to me in April. It took a week of solid phone calls to Amazon to fix it. Their customer service department was the WORST. I must have spent 20 hours on the phone cleaning this mess up. I contacted AMAZON immediately after I received the first e-mail saying I had received a credit and explained to them that my account obviously had been hacked, as I was already using the items supposedly being returned. Initially, they refused to do anything. I kept after them, and about 5 days after the initial "credit", the fraudster started to spend the credited money by purchasing downloadable documents (as a trial). Only after he/she started to SPEND the money, did Amazon step in ....... after 5 days of me shouting from the rooftops. My account had to be shut down. They promised they would call when it was ready to re-boot ..... they didn't. The whole thing was a complete disaster. The account is fixed now, but I haven't ordered anything from Prime now in over two months. It left such a bad taste in my mouth.

I have no intention of shutting down my Amazon account because of THEIR error. I checked my account today and, sure enough, I am still sitting on a credit of $118.63 in gift cards.

I have come to the conclusion that I have put enough of my time and effort into making this right. I have e-mailed, called and used the online chat feature with them and each time, I have gotten the same response..."Sorry for the inconvenience...someone will follow up with you." Since we have a trip coming up in October, I'm just going to use those funds on our Amazon Prime Now grocery order. That was what I was going to use *my* gift card funds for anyways. Since they are refusing to remove their gift cards from my account, I'm going to use them before I add any more of my own. I don't want to risk losing any of my own money and I believe I have made a more than reasonable effort to make this right.

 

[DisneyHardin]

I have no intention of shutting down my Amazon account because of THEIR error. I checked my account today and, sure enough, I am still sitting on a credit of $118.63 in gift cards.

I have come to the conclusion that I have put enough of my time and effort into making this right. I have e-mailed, called and used the online chat feature with them and each time, I have gotten the same response..."Sorry for the inconvenience...someone will follow up with you." Since we have a trip coming up in October, I'm just going to use those funds on our Amazon Prime Now grocery order. That was what I was going to use *my* gift card funds for anyways. Since they are refusing to remove their gift cards from my account, I'm going to use them before I add any more of my own. I don't want to risk losing any of my own money and I believe I have made a more than reasonable effort to make this right.

Amazon is such a huge company that mistakenly giving someone a $100 credit isn't worth their time in trying to straighten it out. Use the money to splurge on something you wouldn't have normally bought for yourself.

 

[robinb]

Let it go. They are not interested in their $89.

 

[kristenrice]

Prime Day was too big of a temptation...if Amazon wants their money back, they can have it!

I broke down and used some of the gift card funds. We are in the process of purchasing a new car and I need a short (4") lightning cable to connect my phone so I can use ApplePlay so I bought a 2-pack of 4" cables. I also bought a 5-pk of 12" cables for our trip in October because the kids and I all have iPhones which will need recharging during the day. I also bought a new 12,000mAh portable charger to pack along with me. That ought to last all day! The total came to under $50 so if they want to come after me for it, I have no issue repaying them since this is stuff I probably would have bought anyways.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

As for the 2 step verification, what is to stop a crook from changing the verification cell ph # once they hack into your Amazon acct? Would your cell phone get a text that an attempt is being made to change the phone number? I'd have to ok it through my phone for the change to go through to completion?

If so, I would love to do this.

 

[kristenrice]

As for the 2 step verification, what is to stop a crook from changing the verification cell ph # once they hack into your Amazon acct? Would your cell phone get a text that an attempt is being made to change the phone number? I'd have to ok it through my phone for the change to go through to completion?

If so, I would love to do this.

With 2-step verification, you have to enter the code that gets texted to your phone to complete the log in process. A crook couldn’t sign in and change that number without having access to in the first place. My biggest fear is what could happen if I lose my phone or somehow get locked out of it...then what?

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

With 2-step verification, you have to enter the code that gets texted to your phone to complete the log in process. A crook couldn’t sign in and change that number without having access to in the first place. My biggest fear is what could happen if I lose my phone or somehow get locked out of it...then what?

I just signed up for this last night.
They allow for a 2nd phone number with either voice/text verification so I added our house phone (land line). If we no longer had that, I'd add dh's cell phone.

 

[PerfessorZ]

Sounds like all this may have happened by them hacking your email account originally, which then allowed them to hack your Amazon account. It's late and I may have missed that you already did this, but make sure you lock down your email just as well as you've done to your Amazon account.