Amazon gift cards - fraud / scam - but no way to claim a refund?

Discountdown123

I've recently been tricked into buying £150 of amazon gift cards and sending them to a crook, who has of course spent them.
(The scammer hacked a friend's email account and emailed me asking for help to buy gift cards as a birthday present for 'their niece' - the friend is in their 80s and I often help them out with stuff like this; and the scammer had done some research and impersonated their writing style very convincingly - I think I'm pretty savvy about scam emails but this was so convincing. I'm kicking myself for not double checking, but it seemed so perfectly plausible. I was asked to purchase the gift cards and given 'their niece's' email address to send the gift on to, which I did. They said they'd pay me a cheque when they saw me next.  I only found out weeks later when I saw them and mentioned repaying me for the gift cards, and they explained their email account had been taken over, etc etc.)
Anyway, let that be a lesson, and all that; but I thought I might be able to claim it back , but apparently not.
I first alerted American Express whose card I had used, and amazon, explained the situation and both said don't worry, we should be able to work something out.
But after amazon reviewed the case they said they couldn't reimburse me since 'the gift card balance I had sent on had all been spent'; and AmEx say that since amazon sold me the gift cards there has been no breach of contract there, I had willingly ordered goods from them which they delivered to me - I chose to pass them on (under false pretences, but that doesn't matter)
I fully understand, amazon need to be wary of customers trying it on and claiming refunds on gift cards. I have no way of proving what happened.
However what annoys me is, the crook(s) clearly have an amazon account, which I funded by sending a gift card to their email, and any goods they purchased from amazon would have to be delivered to a contact address (I doubt any fraudster would want £150-worth of amazon credit just for digital/online merchandise) But when I asked an amazon rep to provide the details of the crook(s)' purchases and contact details, I was told they couldn't disclose this, under data protection laws. I said I wanted to report the matter to the police and they were withholding details about a thief, but they wouldn't change their stance.
So, data protection is being used to help crime, not hinder it, here.
Anyway, does anyone have any similar experiences, and/or suggestions of how to escalate this. Ombudsman service? Section 75 claim? Fraud office?
Thanks for any info.

noitsnotme

Action Fraud but realistically nothing will be done and will be logged as a statistic.  Amazon certainly won’t give you someone else’s account details, scammer or not.  The cards were probably sold on to an innocent party anyway.

Learn your lesson and move on is your only realistic option unfortunately.

D3xt3r5L4b

Report it to action fraud. But there’s not much can be done other than learning and not doing it again?

cymruchris

They probably didn't use the gift card for shopping - they probably sold it through a forum somewhere at a discount for cash back into their own pockets. They wouldn't be daft enough usually to obtain a fraudulently obtained gift card and then get all the things they ordered shipped to their home address. It'll be someone else not linked to the fraud that'll probably have spent it. Sadly no refund likely - chalk it up to experience, tell your friends to ensure it doesn't happen to them, and then carry on with life.

mjm3346

As above they will almost certainly have sold them on so the trail will end there along with any chance of finding someone  to claim against.

Yahoo_Mail

mjm3346 said:

As above they will almost certainly have sold them on so the trail will end there along with any chance of finding someone  to claim against.

Correct.  The likelihood of the scammers spending it on their own account is negligible.  Amazon are not at fault as it was a genuine purchase.  Same with Amex.