Amazon Imposter Scam Hitting Inboxes of Massachusetts Residents

With the Amazon Prime days in the rearview mirror, it's no surprise that con artists would be at it again. In recent days there have been emails going around that appear to be from Amazon that are titled "Your Order With Amazon" and these emails are hitting the inboxes of Massachusetts residents. I recently received one along with a couple of other folks that I know. Be careful these emails look legitimate but are indeed fake.

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How Did I Figure Out This Was a Scam?

What fooled me at first is my wife was talking about ordering some items from Amazon to take advantage of the Prime Day savings so when I first glanced at the email I thought nothing of it as I assumed it was a legitimate confirmation order, until I looked closer and saw what the item was. The confirmation indicated that I would be receiving my  3 "D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Gigabit Wireless Router." Well, guess what? I never ordered that item and neither did my wife.

Then I started looking up Amazon email confirmation scams online and found some more things to look for in the email to further confirm this was a scam. One thing to look for, if you receive the email, is the sending address. If you click on the sender's name and the Amazon address ends with something other than .com, that's a sign. That was the case with the email I received but even trickier as it ended with -net.com. Again, Amazon would never use -net.com or .net or .art (and so on) in its address, just .com is what the company would use.

Another way to decipher whether your Amazon confirmation email is legitimate or a scam is by taking a close look at the order number. Looking back at a previous purchase I made from Amazon, the order number looked something like this (I switched out a couple of numbers just for my own safety) #111-6762219-8382227. So you have a three-digit number followed by a hyphen then seven more numbers, another hyphen and then a series of seven final numbers. All numbers mind you. Now compare it to the order number on the bogus email:

 As you can see this order number's structure is nothing like the legitimate order number. There are letters in it and there are too many characters in it, particularly in the leadoff series. Just to be sure I went back and looked at another past order I made from Amazon and the structure of the order number is the same as the one I provided earlier in the article which includes three numbers, a hyphen, seven numbers, hyphen seven more numbers.

Another thing that is listed in the bogus email is an Amazon slogan at the end of the email that says Earth's Biggest Selection. Correct me if I'm wrong but I looked around and I found a few Amazon slogans from the past and in current times and this isn't one of them. Plus, looking back at my past orders, Amazon doesn't include a slogan in their email confirmation orders. In addition, and this is a big one, legitimate orders come from Amazon not not Amazon.com which is referenced throughout the bogus email including the logo.

If you receive an imposter Amazon email just remember a few important things, do not click on any links, do not call any phone numbers (if there are any), and do not respond to the email. Instead, just delete it. Hackers gaining your financial information or risking identity theft is something nobody wants to deal with but unfortunately happens often. For more information on Amazon imposter scams and how you can protect yourself, go here (this IS a legitimate and informative link).