One man lost £11,000 after falling victim to a scam call he thought was from Amazon.
Sam, from Kenilworth, received an unexpected phone call from scammers informing him his account was currently being hacked.
The fraudster claimed he was an employee at Amazon, and proceeded to act as if he wanted to prevent further risk of money being taken from Sam’s account.
The scammer warned Sam the hackers were buying “a lot” of iPhones on his account, using the card connected to his Amazon account.
Sam recalled the caller claiming “they needed to protect everything” because it was all “in process” and happening at that moment.
Speaking on BBC Radio 5Live, Sam said: “Straight away, what they were telling me was the truth because obviously it was them that had hacked me and were pretending to be the ones that were going to save me.”
Conscious it could be a scam, Sam asked the caller to prove they were actually from Amazon.
He continued: “They sent me the OTP [one-time passcode] and I read it off, or they read it off to me. From that point I was with them, I thought this was legit.
“The caller told me the hackers had managed to buy 11 iPhones on my account, which put me in a panic.
“All my money, in my head, was vanishing from the card I had connected. At this point, I was very stressed.”
The scammers told him he needed to disconnect all the cards on his Amazon account to stop anything else from being bought which he did.
They also warned Sam that the scammers had hacked his screen and could steal his banking information. The scammers persuaded Sam to transfer all his money into a “secure account”, the hackers wouldn’t be able to access.
Sam intended to move his money into his Monzo account, but in his panic, they managed to “play him completely”.
He continued: “They managed to get me to move all of my money from one account into what I thought was going to be my Monzo but one of the digits was wrong or my numbers looked mostly right…”
Sam was unknowingly sending this money to the scammers. Unfortunately, he lost around £11,000, and because the scammers convinced him to make an authorised push payment, he hasn’t been able to get his money back, however, he may have options.
Sam could submit a claim for the Contingent Reimbursement Model (CRM) code if his bank had signed up for this voluntary code.
Criminals stole £580 million through unauthorised and authorised fraud in the first half of 2023. The financial services sector is at the forefront of efforts to protect customers from fraud, including partnering with other sectors, government and law enforcement to prevent and disrupt this criminal activity and bring perpetrators to justice.
Laura Suter, head of personal finance at AJ Bell said: “So-called authorised push payment fraud has hit its highest levels on record, with the number of cases rising by 22 percent in the past year. More than 116,000 cases were recorded in the first half of this year, as scammers ramped up their efforts.
“However, the silver lining to this is that the amount returned to victims hit its highest rate. Of the money lost, 64p in the £1 was returned to victims, following the introduction of the voluntary code of conduct introduced by the industry, but it remains that a third of losses are not reimbursed and have to be footed by the individual.”
An Amazon spokesperson said: “Scammers that attempt to impersonate Amazon put consumers at risk. We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance.
“And we encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe.”
