ARLINGTON, VA— Want some advice about scams? Stay calm. Con artists use that feeling of alarm to trick victims to acting before they can think. BBB Scam Tracker is seeing reports of a con that claims that your Amazon, PayPal, or other account has been compromised. Scammers hope you’ll panic and fall for their scheme.
How the scam works
You receive an email, call, or text message informing you there’s been suspicious activity in your bank or another account, such as Amazon, Netflix, or PayPal. You need to take immediate action to prevent your account from being compromised or to avoid being charged for a fraudulent purchase. Don’t fall for it!
The email version of this con uses the company’s logo, colors, and language to make the message look just like an official alert. In some examples, the emails are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. A link in the message leads to website that asks for your account number, login, and password information. If you share this information, you give scammers access to that account—as well as anywhere else you use the same password.
In the phone version, the caller claims to have noticed an expensive charge, which you didn’t make, on your account. Some victims told BBB Scam Tracker that the caller pushed them to download phony “security software.” This is really malware, which…
