Amazon account hacked, account closed

Marsha2007

Hi, I'm going to cut a long story short but...

On 1st March I had notifications from Amazon re 3 orders for €150 gift cards which I hadn't ordered. It seemed my Amazon was hacked, changed into a business account and then 3 lots of gift cards ordered through amazon.es. The first two went through, the third was stopped by my bank as suspicious activity. My standard account was then closed, and all that was left was a very empty business account with nothing on it (this was then closed by Amazon). Amazon said it must have been me that closed the account and there was nothing they could do about it. I have received some emails from them but nothing at the time to say I'd requested to close the account...which I should have done. I managed to get the money refunded through the bank thankfully, but Amazon have refused to acknowledge fraud as they can't see the account as it's closed, despite me sending every email I've received to them. I've lost everything - gift card balance, audible credits and thousands of kindle books. I have no idea how they got into my Amazon account - 2 factor authentication was on, OTP was set up. I got 2 requests for OTP via a text message about a minute before the fraudulent orders but by the time I got into Amazon to check I'd been logged out.

Since then I've been trying to get access back to my account. The bank have replaced cards saved on there and cut the links to Amazon for each of them (as I know some cards update automatically), I received repeated emails in Spanish regarding the declined order until they cancelled it a week later (I had to use Google translate to understand them!). I have also received repeated emails from Amazon asking me to review items, but this and that, recover your suspended account but every time I try to log in the account isn't recognised. I can only contact them by phone and they won't talk to me about it because the account is closed. They say when it's gone, it's gone.

Today I've received another email saying there has been suspicious activity on my account so they've suspended it, follow these steps to recover...but it won't let me do that. My questions are (if anyone knows):

1. If anyone account is closed is there really no access back into it?
2. If the account is closed and my email is not recognised by them how can they keep sending me emails?
3. Could the email have been changed by the "hackers", and the account is still active somewhere, but if so why do I keep getting the emails?

I'm being driven slowly mad by this. I've come to the conclusion I won't get my account back but it's worrying me why I'm still getting emails re fraudulent activity...is there something still going on?

Any help or advice appreciated.

flaneurs_lobster

Not the first report I've seen, both here and elsewhere, of fully secured Amazon accounts being hijacked.

Most of such attacks become less impactful (at least financially) if a low-value debit/cash card is the only payment method set up on Amazon, if there is a need to have any method set up at all.

You make a good point about Kindle (and Prime Video) purchases, people need to be aware that what has been bought is the right to view these products for as long as you have an Amazon account (even a free one will do).

Vitor

At this point I'd change password on email and look for forwarding rules etc. on the email that hackers could have set so they're one step ahead of the OP.

Jumblebumble

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6659862/amazon-account-hacked-account-closed

I think that Amazon are not being truthful

The Tax authorities would not be particularly amused if Amazon could not provide details of an account claiming that they could not see it as it had been closed

born_again

Does the OP have Spanish Amazon acc. As it could be possible that if they are dealing with Amazon UK, that they do not have access to Spanish accounts.

Marsha2007

Hi all thanks for replies. Email account doesn't appear to have been hacked. I've changed password and received all notifications I've done that in two separate ways so can't see thats how it was done because I would have been told...surely 🤔 checked all forwarding rules etc, nothing untoward 🤷

I didn't have a Spanish account, but the account when hacked had been changed to a business account and the gift cards were bought via amazon.es. I've tried logging in to .es but that account isn't recognised like my standard account.

Amazon refuse to talk to me as the account is closed and they don't reply to emails. The way they've handled this is awful considering i did nothing wrong, but I suppose they don't know that though as they can't see the account, as far as they're concerned I closed the account...end of!

Ive resigned myself to the fact that I've lost everything and will have to start from scratch with my kindle and audible library. I love my books but I can't switch airplane mode on my kindle else it will lose the books on there, so a new kindle it is for going forward. I don't want to use Amazon again, but I know I will as it's just so handy for next day deliveries on items you can't get easily anywhere else!

Marsha2007

Agreed! They must retain some sort of information, looking at their page about closing accounts it does say they retain some information. They must retain something else why am I still getting emails despite the account being closed. I just can't get past the front line customer service people.