Another Online Fraud Warning

The internet provides an incredibly useful facility in modern day life, but it has opened up a whole new set of options for unscrupulous criminals to part us from our cash. And some of these, it has to be acknowledged, are rather creative — not to say ingenious. These means that law-abiding folk need to remain ever vigilant when online.

This latest warning comes courtesy of Action Fraud and Thame Valley Police:

Action Fraud has received several reports from victims who have been sent convincing looking emails claiming to be from Amazon. The spoofed emails from "service@amazon.co.uk" claim recipients have made an order online and mimic an automatic customer email notification.

The scam email claims recipients have ordered an expensive vintage chandelier. Other reported examples include: Bose stereos, iPhone's and luxury watches.

Similar scam emails have purported to come from Apple in relation to supposed online music purchases.

The emails cleverly state that if recipients haven't authorised the transaction they can click on the help centre link to receive a full refund. The link leads to an authentic-looking website, which asks victims to confirm their name, address, and bank card information.

Amazon says that suspicious Emails will often contain:

• Links to websites that look like Amazon.co.uk, but aren't Amazon.co.uk.
• Attachments or prompts to install software on your computer.
• Typos or grammatical errors.
• Forged (or spoofed) Email addresses to make it look like the Email is coming from Amazon.co.uk.

Amazon will never ask for personal information to be supplied by Email.

You can read more about identifying suspicious Emails claiming to be from Amazon by visiting this webpage.

To report a fraud or cyber crime, call us on 0300 123 2040.