Malicious individuals have managed to loot more than 400,000 pounds (460,000 euros) in the United Kingdom in two months through the so-called Amazon scam. British police recently announced.
Those affected are called by a computer and told that a fraudster has used their information to register an Amazon Prime subscription.
To cancel the subscription, the called person must dial the number 1 on their phone. The victim is then connected to a scammer who pretends to be an Amazon employee. This scammer explains that he needs remote access to the computer to fix a security vulnerability that allowed a fraudster to cancel this subscription.
The called person is asked to download the program TeamViewer and to log into his bank account. Using TeamViewer, the scammer can view his victim's account information. A variation of this type of fraud is that the victim is first told that he is eligible for a refund from his Amazon account.
Action Fraud, the British police's center for fraud complaints, received 200 reports in two months of people being scammed in this way. The average loss per person is 2,300 euros, bringing the total loot to more than 460,000 euros. The police also received reports from 300 people that they had been called by scammers, but had not lost any money.
