Hunting for bargains this Amazon Prime Day? Avoid scammers, company warns. Here's how

As Amazon shoppers get ready to take advantage of Prime Day deals, the company is warning shoppers to watch out for Amazon impersonation scams.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, Amazon the most impersonated business in 2021, with about 1 in 3 people reporting that a scammer pretended to be an Amazon representative. The scam cost consumers more than $27 million in losses.

“Impersonation scams today are complex and bad actors use many methods when attempting to scam consumers,” said Scott Knapp, Amazon’s director of worldwide buyer risk prevention. Scammers do their homework by identifying the areas that consumers are going to be most susceptible and operate a wide criminal network to execute different parts of the scam.”

Purchases you make through our links may earn us and our publishing partners a commission.

How do I protect myself from Amazon scams?

Amazon works great for entrepreneurs, but there are bad actors. Kebharu Smith, director of Amazon’s counterfeit crimes unit, said the company stopped 800,000 such accounts in 2022, down from over 2.5 million attempts in 2021 and 6 million attempts in 2020.

“Our robust seller and product vetting coupled with our efforts to hold bad actors accountable are deterring bad actors from even attempting to enter our store,” he said.

Here is what the company wants consumers to watch out for:

If you’ve received a suspicious email or text message claiming to be from Amazon asking you to contact them or download software, do not directly reply to it. Instead, contact Amazon customer service directly through the app or website to verify if there is an issue with your purchase.
Fraudulent emails are phishing attempts for personal information. They can contain grammatical and spelling errors, and link you to websites other than Amazon.
If you are being asked to make an Amazon payment over phone or email, or a bank transfer on another website, it is most likely a scam. Amazon only asks for payments through their mobile app, website, or physical stores. Also, never pay for something you did not order.
Don’t be pressured into buying a gift card, as Amazon will never ask for one and no legitimate sale or transaction on Amazon will require a gift card.
Scammers will create a false sense of urgency to persuade you into making a payment. Don’t fall for it.

Readers Also Like: The rise of surge pricing: ‘It will eventually be everywhere’