By Lydia Hope Wilen
Here I am, a seemingly sophisticated, reasonably bright, outwardly aware Upper West Sider. I answered Spam Risk calls as sport for fun. You know those kind of calls: “This is about your grandson. He’s been arrested and he needs bail money.” And I would say: “That bum! Let him rot in jail.” The scammer would hang up faster than I could. Or I would make it sound as though I were holding my hand over the receiver and I’d whisper: “Start the trace.” Another fast hang up.
Last month, I got an email from a second cousin who is a chiropractor in Reston, Virginia. We’re in touch via email a few times a year, mostly to wish each other a happy whatever holiday it is. This time there was no holiday. Marion’s email asked one question: Do you have an Amazon account? I answered asking: Why do you want to know? The reply was that she couldn’t use her Amazon account and would I do her a major favor. Her friend has stage 4 cancer and it’s her birthday. She wrote, “If you could send my friend, Carol, a $150 gift card, I’ll put a check in the mail to you immediately.”
She gave me her friend’s name and email address and told me what to write to Carol. I had questions, but instead of calling my cousin, I figured out plausible answers to my questions. For instance: the friend’s name is Carol; the email address is margebill. So I figured that Carol is using her two children’s or her parents’ names as her email address.
Then I thought, why isn’t Marion asking one of her friends to do this. Why me? And so I reasoned that she is friends with her clients and doesn’t want to involve any people in her chiropractic business.
I sent the $150 gift card, with the message (bible quote) to Carol. It came back as undeliverable. I thought I probably had the wrong email address. I called Marion. The call went directly to voicemail. I left a message about not being able to send the gift card. I told her I wanted to check the email address with her and to call me when she reads this.
I went back to the computer and there was another email from who I thought was Marion and it gave me the correct email address. Within seconds, I sent the gift card again and this time it went through.
Seconds after that, my phone rang. It was Marion telling me that she was hacked and the scammer has contacted everyone of her contacts. Hearing that, I told Marion I’m going to call Amazon immediately, and I did. When I finally got a real person on the phone, she connected me to a higher level customer support agent who then connected me to an even higher level agent in their fraud department.
I was told that I’m lucky that they caught it in time and locked out the scammer before the gift card could be used. I was also told that I’m locked out. I can’t use my Amazon account until I get a call back — Monday or Tuesday — from her. At that time, she’ll tell me how Amazon will credit my account.
I didn’t get a call back Monday or Tuesday. I called them on Wednesday and talked to one of the women I had originally spoken with. She told me that the person I should be talking to is on another call and will call me back. She never called me back.
When I called again, I was told that I can use my Amazon account, but that I was responsible for the $150 gift card. And sure enough, the charge was on my American Express bill.
I called American Express and was told there is nothing they could do about it because it was a scam and not a fraud.
What’s the difference, I wondered. They explained: Fraud typically involves unauthorized access to personal information without the victim’s knowledge or consent. Scams are designed to manipulate victims into willingly providing their information. Or in my case, ordering and paying for a $150 Amazon gift card that I sent to the scammer.
The day I got the American Express bill, I also got a copy of the AARP magazine, featuring “BEWARE” articles about frauds and scams. It included the AARP Fraud Network Helpline with their number: 877-908-3360.
I called and was told that one of their agents would call me back the following day. Wonder of wonders; miracle of miracles … the agent called. He heard my experience, sympathized, and said I’d gotten off easy, unlike others he’d spoken with (mostly older women) who were bilked for thousands.
He recommended that write a letter and snail-mail it to the Amazon executives and board of directors and also send it to the following email address and websites:
reportfraud.ftc.gov (this is the Federal Trade Commission
ic3.gov (this is the FBI)
The AARP agent told me not to expect an answer unless my experience has something to do with a case they are investigating. The FBI gets about 10,000 complaints a day.
Yes, it was a relatively inexpensive and important lesson I learned: NEVER give, lend, donate, wire, fax, send, email, text, snail-mail, or carrier pigeon, money to anyone unless you talk directly to the person who is asking for the money. Now, with AI being able to use voices to say whatever, ask the money-requester a question to which only you two would know the answer.
Some more sad and smart advice: Be vigilant instead of trusting, especially if you’re asked to go to your bank or ATM or to use your credit card or Amazon account.
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excellent advice
may I remember it when it’s my turn…
Thank you for this post and warning.
No matter how vigilant you are, there comes a moment for all of us when we let our guard down. Love your “start the trace” ploy!
This can happen to anyone. I’m not just being nice. A lot of my work relates to fraud, and that’s what I tell everyone.
P.S. Please also report this to the NYAG. Again, you probably won’t get an individual response, but it’s a serious question whether Amazon is taking enough steps to prevent this kind of scam, knowing that it’s out there. (It’s a complex issue, but, without scrutiny, Amazon will default to “no steps,” because that’s the cheapest option for it.)
I had a similar experience but was able to get my Apple gift card refunded once I caught on and spoke to someone at Apple. Because the email seems to originate from someone you know, it’s easy to fall for it.
“I was told that I’m lucky that they caught it in time and locked out the scammer before the gift card could be used. ” I don’t understand – if the gift card had not been used then you should be able just to apply it to your own Amazon account. If the gift card had been used after Amazon had told you that it was not – then it’s the Amazon problem and they should refund you. What am I missing?
I have never been scammed. But I send Amazon gift cards frequently so the scam that got Marion just might have gotten me. But now, having read Marion’s post, it would not.
This is terrible, and the worst part (almost) is that the promised cells from Amazon never materialized. And I have to wonder why, if the scam was caught in time, the Amex account was not refunded. She should have been reimbursed—scam or fraud—she was tricked.
So sorry to hear this — thank you for the heads up and possible next steps to take.
Sad, very sad. Unfortunately for us all, the big money corporations that pushed handing over our lives over to computers never bothered to really set up protections to prevent fraud, scams and hacking. Why? Because it’s all about money and since they have made it pretty hard if not impossible for them to be held accountable, they really don’t care.
The series on PBS called Mr. Banks v. The Post Office shows the real hazard of turning over our government to computers. “ Infallible “computers combined with perfidious government officials equals heart ache and disaster for the humans involved.
I was feeling pretty smart, not falling for any scams all these years, until this same one caught me a few months ago. It was supposedly the husband of a friend who needed the Amazson gift card for his wife. He was in a hurry (a big no-no clue), but I was in a hurry too and swallowed his reasons and excuses hook line and sinker.
Don’t forget about AI also. They can now mimic voices of our loved ones. Question anyone asking for money or a gift and call them to confirm.
So sad that we now live in a world where we can’t trust anyone or anything, not even our own judgement. Very disheartening. When I lived in the upper West Side many years ago, my family left our apartment door unlocked so friends, neighbors, relatives and us kids could come and go. Now a suburbanite, I lock my doors, set my alarm, don’t answer calls from people I don’t know, be careful what I say when I do answer calls, shred all documents, set alerts so I know every time there’s bank or credit card account activity, etc. Staying vigilant is a full time job. Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m sorry that happened to you but by sharing your story maybe someone else will be spared.
Rule no. 1: Anytime anyone asks you for money out of the blue is a sign you’re about to be scammed.
If a real friend wants money, they should come to you in person. If it’s a dear friend in another state – they should have some other form of help from someone closer.
You are not alone. Scammers have gotten so good, so clever and can suss out the caring people in our midst. Even the most mature, smartest, most clever and even suspicious of us get taken.
Thank you for sharing this. These scammers are counting on the scammed feeling shame for being scammed and therefore not telling others. Good for you for not following the scammers’ textbook and for NOT taking on a shame that is not yours. It is THEY who should be ashamed. The rest of us should tell everyone, every time anything like this happens, and should share the information as you had. Because knowledge is power, and scammers hope we won’t know and would feel too wounded to tell. Thank you, again, for this. I’m passing this link to many others, so every. One. Knows. (Also, the carrier pigeon, especially, should be avoided. Some of them NYC pigeons have uncles in Nigeria!… ;))
in my case, selling my boat. i am holding 5 (as real as you can imagine) cashier’s checks, $30k to $40k each. the directions to me, as quickly as possible i am to wire back to the “buyer” $5k to $6k to pay for the boat hauler. as it was, each and every cashier’s check came from non-existing accounts, and if deposited would have bounced. lucky for me, i was nearly suckered in with the first wired payment i made, that was stopped by my bank. of course, the first cashiered check deposited bounced.
Thank you for such an informative article on such an important and timely topic. These scams can happen to anyone, the more information we have the better job we can do in foiling the scammers.
Is it possible for you to dispute the charge with your credit card company? I think Amazon is giving you a bs story. You thought you were sending a card to Carol, friend of your cousin. You were not. That’s fraud. Dispute the charge,
What a sad world we now live in
Thank you.
Years ago, we had all sorts of people from all over the world showing up in the lobby of our co-op building on the UWS during the warm weather months. Each group had been scammed by someone who was claiming to have an Air BnB apartment for rent for a week in lieu of an expensive NYC hotel room. The inside apt. photos clearly did not match the outside of our building, which has distinctive round terraces and round bay windows, but none of these people noticed the flat apartment walls and windows. They also didn’t notice that the description of the neighborhood included Lincoln Center (true), the theatre district (true) and Columbia University (not true) being a short walk from the building. They also listed a few other locations nowhere near us. But, the foreigners had no idea of the geography of the neighborhood. The scammer told them he would meet them at the airport, so they knew something was off when they landed and no one met them. By the time they got to our co-op building (where no rentals are allowed, let along Air BnB rentals), they were at least partially ready for the bad news. But it kept happening until our lawyers had to notify Air BnB they were to flag our address and never list it again. It was quite a mess. We were able to steer people to some lower end hotels near Columbus Avenue, but some of those are gone. They came with kids and luggage and it was a horrible, sad mess. Some came as far as Australia! And, by summer hotels in NYC are booked, and now, of course, if this happens, it will be a fortune to find a reasonable hotel not housing migrants or homeless. Be careful of this scam, too, if you rent on Air BnB.
I’m sorry this happened to you. Telling stories like this is helpful to others. Thanks for that.