Hundreds of people have received legitimate emails from Amazon confirming the purchase of a Google Play, Mastercard or Hotels.com gift card. However, the recipients did not order anything and their accounts were not compromised.
When you opened your mailbox this morning, you may have seen three emails from Amazon. Everyone thanks you for your purchase for a gift card from 3 separate companies: Google, MasterCard And Hotels.com. Two things must have struck you then. The first is that messages appear completely authentic. The second is that you are sure you did not order a gift card.
Rest assured, you are not the only one. On the community social network Reddit, a user says he received the famous emails. The topic quickly garnered more than 500 comments from people in the same situation. Spontaneously, we think of a scam. It’s unfortunately common to see a fake message from Amazon saying that you have purchased something when you haven’t. However, here, This is not a phishing attempt.
Amazon informs several people of the purchase of a gift card even though they have not ordered anything
Ironically, the emails received indicate that “there are a whole bunch of scams in which fraudsters try to trick people into paying with well-known brand gift cards. Learn more about the most common scam attempts […], click the button below or contact us now”. Suspicious, but the link in question goes to the Amazon page dedicated to the phenomena.
Read also – Amazon: you have not won a gift, this email is a scam!
In the end, it is simply a Amazon error. A spokesperson confirmed that “an error in our email system resulted in an order confirmation email being sent to customers who had not purchased a gift card. We have corrected this error so that it does not occur again and we are sending an email to these customers to inform them […]”. However, we do not know what caused this error, nor why it specifically concerned gift cards from three brands. Remember that if in doubt, it is best to contact the brand or sales platform directly to check whether or not your account was used for an unwanted purchase.
Source: Bleeping Computer