Amazon fraud

maggiem

Just a warning. My Amazon seller account must have been compromised. It's not an account I use often but I received an e mail telling me I had sold a MacBook and contacted them immediately saying this was not correct. Then some two weeks later Amazon took £748 from my credit card. Trying to resolve this has been a nightmare and even now it is not resolved as Amazon are saying they cannot refund a credit card. They are impossible to deal with, sending e mails that cannot be responded to and their seller department only operates between 9 and 6. So my advice is to beware and I could not recommend anyone to use Amazon Seller since if there is a problem it is so hard to try and sort out.

wealdroam

maggiem wrote: »

Just a warning. My Amazon seller account must have been compromised. It's not an account I use often but I received an e mail telling me I had sold a MacBook and contacted them immediately saying this was not correct. Then some two weeks later Amazon took £748 from my credit card. Trying to resolve this has been a nightmare and even now it is not resolved as Amazon are saying they cannot refund a credit card. They are impossible to deal with, sending e mails that cannot be responded to and their seller department only operates between 9 and 6. So my advice is to beware and I could not recommend anyone to use Amazon Seller since if there is a problem it is so hard to try and sort out.

You appear not to have told us the full story.

First you say Amazon tell you that you have sold something.
Surely that results in a credit to your account.

Then you tell us that Amazon have deducted £748 from your credit card.

Care to fill in the missing bits?

mije1983

wealdroam wrote: »

First you say Amazon tell you that you have sold something.
Surely that results in a credit to your account.

Then you tell us that Amazon have deducted £748 from your credit card.

Just guessing here as I'm not an Amazon Seller, but I'm wondering if it happened something like this:

• The rogue seller was paid through a bank transfer/PayPal so OP's account never received the credit;
• Buyer contacts Amazon to say they never received item;
• Amazon debits OP's card details it has on file to reimburse buyer.

powerful_Rogue

Contact your credit card provider. Let them deal with it.

maggiem

Thanks for help folks. I have now contacted my credit card company. I'm not sure about credits or not; as I said contacted them directly they sent the first e mail saying a MacBook had sold.

However I did want to warn others that if their account is fraudulently hacked into (and I've no idea how that was achieved) that Amazon are hopeless at resolving the issue, contacting you, responding to e mails / phone calls.

Should anything similar happen in the future I think I will just contact the credit card directly although it seems a bit unreasonable when they have done nothing wrong.

Azari

maggiem wrote: »

Thanks for help folks. I have now contacted my credit card company. I'm not sure about credits or not; as I said contacted them directly they sent the first e mail saying a MacBook had sold.

However I did want to warn others that if their account is fraudulently hacked into (and I've no idea how that was achieved) that Amazon are hopeless at resolving the issue, contacting you, responding to e mails / phone calls.

Should anything similar happen in the future I think I will just contact the credit card directly although it seems a bit unreasonable when they have done nothing wrong.

You still haven't properly explained what happened.

I occasionally sell things through Amazon and what happens is that three weeks after the item is sold Amazon do a transfer to my bank account. That's the only way to get the money.

Did someone alter the bank account associated with your account?

Amazon usually send you an email when something like that happens (to prevent this type of situation occurring).

I'm at a loss as to how to make any sense of your story.

maggiem

Hello Azari
I'm not sure what happened. As I said I contacted them when I first was told I had sold something and was told this was sorted out. Then I had an e mail saying they were taking £748 from my credit card. I had asked from my seller account to be closed when I had the e mail so could no longer check the account. I think you are right that Amazon had paid money to someone's account as they asked me if I had a bank account ending in 4 numbers that was not mine. They have since, eventually credited my Amazon account and I have tried to transfer the money into my bank account but to date it has not credited my account. I still cannot find out why they charged my credit card when that card was new and had not been linked with the seller account as far as I know.

I suppose part of the warning is that of you have an old seller account you never use, you should still check on it. I hadn't sold anything since 2011 and never thought about it.

I'm still very unhappy at Amazon seller service which is dreadful. They will not ring germany - I am working there at present and trying to sort this out by e mail is a nightmare. As someone said I wish I had just left it with the credit card to sort out. I am hoping the money will be in my bank account by 6th after BH and I can then transfer to credit card. Funny that I can transfer money between bank and credit card accounts virtually instantly but it takes Amazon some days.

So guess this is seller beware. Hope that answers your queries Azari.

Azari

maggiem wrote: »

Hello Azari
I'm not sure what happened. As I said I contacted them when I first was told I had sold something and was told this was sorted out. Then I had an e mail saying they were taking £748 from my credit card. I had asked from my seller account to be closed when I had the e mail so could no longer check the account. I think you are right that Amazon had paid money to someone's account as they asked me if I had a bank account ending in 4 numbers that was not mine. They have since, eventually credited my Amazon account and I have tried to transfer the money into my bank account but to date it has not credited my account. I still cannot find out why they charged my credit card when that card was new and had not been linked with the seller account as far as I know.

I suppose part of the warning is that of you have an old seller account you never use, you should still check on it. I hadn't sold anything since 2011 and never thought about it.

I'm still very unhappy at Amazon seller service which is dreadful. They will not ring germany - I am working there at present and trying to sort this out by e mail is a nightmare. As someone said I wish I had just left it with the credit card to sort out. I am hoping the money will be in my bank account by 6th after BH and I can then transfer to credit card. Funny that I can transfer money between bank and credit card accounts virtually instantly but it takes Amazon some days.

So guess this is seller beware. Hope that answers your queries Azari.

Yes, it does.

They clearly had complete access to your account and hence changed the associated bank account. It was how they got the money from Amazon that was unclear.

The most worrying thing about this that I can see is that they managed to do this without you ever becoming aware that they were changing things. Amazon should have told you when the associated bank account changed and if the criminal started off by changing the associated email address, Amazon should have sent a notice that this was happening to the original email address.