OT - credit card fraud

[wc1934]

A short time back I received a notice from Nashbar that there was a breach of their security system (it was discussed here on the forum for a bit).

Yesterday I received the following from Amazon:

"After careful review of your account, we believe it may have been accessed and used by a third-party to make purchases without your permission, but it appears they did not use your credit card to make these purchases. It seems that someone obtained your personal account and/or financial information elsewhere, and used it on Amazon.com to access your
account.

We have closed your account effective immediately because of this
possible unauthorized account activity. If this recent account activity (new shipping address) was authorized by you, please click the link below to verify your account information, after that we will reactivate your account".

Any idea what is going on - they bought something on my account - had it shipped somewhere but did not use my credit card - anyone else ever have such a situation?

[Louis]

- they bought something on my account - had it shipped somewhere but did not use my credit card - anyone else ever have such a situation?

Sounds kooky to me. What's the benefit to the fraudster to do this?

[coopdog]

That sounds like a scam. Don't ever "verify" anything sensitive via an email inquest. Go to amazon.com to verify.

[JohnHemlock]

That email sounds like a phishing scam

[Volant]

Scam. Do NOT follow the link.

[Bud_E]

Scam. Do NOT follow the link.

+1000

[Ahneida Ride]

SCAM !!!!! contact Amazon Directly ....

[William]

...If this recent account activity (new shipping address) was authorized by you, please click the link below to verify your account information, after that we will reactivate your account".

In otherwords....If you have used the account you set up, follow this link and verify you are you by giving us your password (which we would already have if we were really Amazon) to verify you are you using your account.



Scam.





William

[FL_MarkD]

One of the interesting notes about the 'Nashbar incident' was that it appears that the 'theft' was of account information, not just credit card info. If you happen to use the same password for Nashbar and Amazon and your email address is the 'userid', then it is possible that the Nashbar info could be used to logon to other sites. Amazon certainly would be a common site that many people use, so scammers with your email address and Nashbar password might give it a try there. Not saying that is the case here, but it is another possibility.

Another level of protection is to NOT store you credit card info in your account profile for the site. It saves time when you purchase something, but opens you up to yet another way someone can capture your info.

Mark