The cybersecurity firm Panda warns of a new wave of telephone scams related to Amazon. These fraudulent calls have as a common denominator offering an e-commerce gift voucher of up to 500 euros.
The calls detected by Panda in which the telemarketers “give away” their victims “a credit of 500 euros on Amazon” are a very important bait for not being taken into account, being easy to sting clueless people and ending up in hell for who have fallen into the trap.
Amazon does not give away checks
This Amazon-related scam is run by an organized group of scammers. According to data from Panda, before making the call, they study the victim to use social engineering and make it easier for the deception to be created if the operator who calls knows, in addition to the phone number, other personal information such as name, city of residence or if you have children.
As on other occasions, there is a marked sense of urgency to try to lower the defenses of the one who has received the call. Phrases such as “special offer that will end in a few hours” are used and the pressure exerted by the caller will cause us to lose details such as “to receive the credit it is necessary to deposit 200 euros”.
“With the credit of 500 euros that you are going to obtain, you will be able to buy whatever you want on Amazon. It is very simple”. In the case reported from Panda, where a telephone operator with a marked Italian accent (although calling from the United Kingdom) was even rude, warning that she does not have time to understand all the steps we must take to obtain the supposed gift voucher, the scammer he even scolded vehemently.
WhatsApp Phishing
The scam operator continues with her scam saying “you, all you have to do is click on the link that we have sent you by WhatsApp”. That is where the scam changes from the means of calling to WhatsApp.
What is later received by WhatsApp is a message on the mobile with a link to a web page that has nothing to do with Amazon, but a link to a currency exchange website (Forex). That is where you have to quickly enter the 200 euros that they have commented on the call.
Even if it were true and not a scam, the gift is strange, because if we have to enter 200 euros on the platform and then we are going to receive a supposed check for 500 euros, simple mathematics tells us that the gift is really going to be 300 euro.
In the case exposed by Panda, when telling a first telemarketer that this system is not trusted and that it seems like a scam, a second call was received, posing as “the head of the Amazon department”. This second scammer is also extremely offended. “You look stupid if you don’t want to earn 500 euros on Amazon right now. Click on the link. Click on the link”.
“Cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated and increasingly have more human and technological resources to deceive and defraud people. It is important to be wary of anything that seems too good to be true and, when in doubt, it is important to analyze the links we receive on our mobile phones from strangers”, adds Hervé Lambert, Global Consumer Operations Manager at Panda Security.
From the first call, although the second attempt ended up hanging up, the phone number used for the cybersecurity test has received calls every day for two weeks. One at lunchtime and another at five in the afternoon. All of them from telephone numbers with the Italian prefix +39.
