According to this email, which claims to be from the “Assistance Center” at Amazon, the company is missing some information for your account.
Supposedly, Amazon needs to collect “certain information” from you to apply with applicable laws and keep your account secure. The email urges you to click a link to see what information you need to provide. It asks that you send the missing information by a specified date a few days hence.
Once on the bogus site, you will be asked to enter your Amazon email address, your account password, your credit card details, your name and contact details, and other identifying information.
All of this information can be collected by criminals and used to hijack your Amazon account, commit fraud with your credit card, and steal your identity.
The supposed compliance date varies in different incarnations of the scam email.
There have been many versions of these Amazon phishing scams.
Be wary of any email that looks like it was sent by Amazon and claims that you must click a link or open an attachment to deal with a supposed account, purchase, shipping, or security issue.
Always check your Amazon account and review any transactions by entering the Amazon address into your browser’s address bar and logging in or via a trusted app. This is safer than clicking an email link.
The Amazon website includes information about how to identify and report phishing scams like this one.
A screenshot of the scam email:
Importance Notice
After considerable thought and with an ache in my heart, I have decided that the time has come to close down the Hoax-Slayer website.These days, the site does not generate enough revenue to cover expenses, and I do not have the financial resources to sustain it going forward.
Moreover, I now work long hours in a full-time and physically taxing job, so maintaining and managing the website and publishing new material has become difficult for me.
And finally, after 18 years of writing about scams and hoaxes, I feel that it is time for me to take my fingers off the keyboard and focus on other projects and pastimes.
When I first started Hoax-Slayer, I never dreamed that I would still be working on the project all these years later or that it would become such an important part of my life. It's been a fantastic and engaging experience and one that I will always treasure.
I hope that my work over the years has helped to make the Internet a little safer and thwarted the activities of at least a few scammers and malicious pranksters.
A Big Thank You
I would also like to thank all of those wonderful people who have supported the project by sharing information from the site, contributing examples of scams and hoaxes, offering suggestions, donating funds, or helping behind the scenes.I would especially like to thank David White for his tireless contribution to the Hoax-Slayer Facebook Page over many years. David's support has been invaluable, and I can not thank him enough.
Closing Date
Hoax-Slayer will still be around for a few weeks while I wind things down. The site will go offline on May 31, 2021. While I will not be publishing any new posts, you can still access existing material on the site until the date of closure.Thank you, one and all!
Brett Christensen,
Hoax-Slayer
