Broadband Tech > Security > Scam and Phishbusters > [Credit Card Fraud] AMZ*SUPERSTORE

[Credit Card Fraud] AMZ*SUPERSTORE

Contact your Bank again, these are probably not charges against the new card number, instead they may be "rollover charges" from the old number.

For some strange reason charges made to cancelled cards will automatically roll to the replacement card for some period of time. That policy however does not make any sense if the original card was cancelled for fraud.

So do call the bank and ask them if this was the case and post back. If they were made directly against the new number, post and confirm.

Is AMZ*Superstore = Amazon?

MGD

Edit=Add text

They were made directly against the new number.

Regarding your Amazon question does AMZ*Superstore = Amazon, I do not know. Sorry

For me Amazon shows up as AMZ*SUPERSTORE AMZN.COM/BILLWA

Thanks Big Ed, The first order of business was to check the immediate family. The next was to check our Amazon account and found no such recent charges. Further online search uncovered this problem is not a new one.

»www.complaints.com/directory/200···0/11.htm

Amazon - On July 15, 2004 Amazon superstore deducted $ 369.47 from my wife and my debit account. We ordered nothing and our customer records indicate just that.
Amazon takeing money from customer account !!!

On July 15, 2004 Amazon superstore deducted $ 369.47 from my wife and my debit account. We ordered nothing and our customer records indicate just that. After contacting customer service and answering all there questions we received a email saying they would get back to us in 2 days that was on the fifth of august and now it is the 12th and we have not had any contact from them.

We contacted our bank locally and they have started the necessary paper work to get our money back, we also filed a police report with our local Police department for fraud. Amazon refuses to tell us anything pertaining to our account and says we will have to get a subpoena in order to get them to release any information to us in regards to our account.

Now as I have stated let me make this clear we ordered nothing and a check of our customer account with amazon shows nothing in this amount ever charged to our account. We also have filed a complaint with BBB in Calif and Washington, Attorney Generals Office in Calif and Washington. This is the most unbelievable situation our bank has ever heard of. If you or anyone you know is doing business with Amazon superstores please be warned of this situation and find someone else to do business with.

We are also currently seeking legal advise as to what type law suit to file. Amazon refuses to answer customer complaints and thus we need to put a stop to this. Anyone with information as to stock holders or company exec's please feel free to contact me via phone or email.

Dr Gary W

»www.complaints.com/directory/200···1/18.htm

As I was balancing the check book, early this December, 2004, I noticed a charge from our debit card For Amz* Superstore - Amazon.com in the amount of $94.56. Since I hadn't purchased anything in months from them, my immediate thought was that my husband had purchased a Christmas present for me from them. Curious enough not to wait until Christmas, I logged on to our account at amazon.com only to find out that there was no outstanding order for anything and that neither of us had ordered anything since August. We e-mailed Amazon.com to request a reversal of the charge, given the fact that there was no purchase order.

They frankly agreed that nothing was ordered in our name, but only stated that they would investigate the matter. Several e-mails, phone calls and three weeks later, their investigation concluded that yup! we never ordered anything from them. That's it! Meanwhile, the money was still missing from our bank account and in Amazon.com's pocket. In the end, we took it up with VISA and our bank to refund our money. Did I mention that Amazon.com still had our money? I did, didn't I? To make a long story short, We had to go through the nightmare of closing out our bank account, re-opening another one and having new cards re-issued after signing notarized documents and affidavits. It felt as though we were criminals.

Upon doing my own investigation, I discovered that there was a plethora of amazon.com customers who were scammed in the same matter:
View another story just like mine on this website www.complaints.com by Dr. Gary Walton.

Why should Amazon.com do anything to stop this? Products are getting purchased, and so they are making money. They don't have to refund for unauthorized purchases. It's not their fault, right? How about warning their customers that someone's hacked into their system and is stealing information. How about just a simple disclaimer warning their customers not to save credit card information in their Amazon.com profile? Why haven't these thieves been caught yet?

Have they investigated the people that manage their secure information? Why hasn't Amazon.com been helping the Feds through all this? Why haven't they enacted a "smart card program" to secure their customer information? They don't even have the decency to tell you that they won't refund any part of your money for their lack of security. You have to figure that out yourself when you get tired of waiting for their response. This is the same company that was going bankrupt a few years ago, before this identity theft scam started. But, of course, they're only victims, just like us.

A bit of advise:
Delete your personal credit card info. from the website.
Post a complaint. Even after you've gotten your refund from your credit card company, don't sit back and let it happen to someone else.
Monitor your credit cards for fraud: www.cardcops.com
Let me know your story by responding to this e-mail. If we find a common denominator we can stop this fraud.
Rita

Rita N

reply to louband
from the way it sounds, amazon can't do anything if an order isnt in their system. sounds like someone is "spoofing" the amazon superstore name. You complain to amazon, they have nothing, but the real crooks are hiding behind amazon with your cash.

one question I have tho, is/was your CC info stored in your amazon.com profile?
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babbling | Donate

reply to louband
It seems a little unlikely that someone could get a merchant account that is the same as Amazon. In any case, your credit card company should be able to verify that the charge is from Amazon.

Amazon processes an enormous number of charges, obviously. if a bad number is entered/given, there is a one in ten chance that it will have a correct check digit. There is a much smaller chane that it will correspond to a legitimate number, but it does happen.

Protest, and the bank will have Amazon verify the account it was used on.

reply to pcdebb
Yes the CC info WAS stored in my amazon.com profile.

reply to Kip patterson
Chase bank fraud department was notified the day the fraudulent charge's appeared on my account. The card was immediately cancelled.

reply to louband
»www.cardinalcommerce.com/article···azon.htm

Credit card victim blames Amazon

Says number was stolen after using gift certificate at e-tailer;
company says it’s sure systems weren’t compromised

By Bob Sullivan and Mike Brunker
MSNBC

Jan. 3 — Larry Hountz just happened to check his bank statement while online last weekend, and it’s a good thing. There were five mysterious charges totaling $400, all placed at Amazon.com. And one of the charges had been refunded. He called the company to find that Amazon investigators had already determined the charges were fraudulent, and the Amazon account where they were placed had been closed. Hountz and Amazon agree on that part of the story. But Hountz says his card number was stolen from Amazon by a hacker and says a customer service representative told him that 100 other cards had been ripped off. Impossible, says Amazon — its systems have not been compromised.

THE FRAUDULENT CHARGES began on Dec. 29, according to a billing record sent to MSNBC by Hountz. After five charges were posted, the first charge was refunded to his credit card account. Hountz then called the company to complain about the activity and says he was told the card number must have been stolen somewhere else or faked by a credit card number generator program. Still, he says he was told there were perhaps 100 other customers who had been victimized the same way, and that the items were being shipped to somewhere in Eastern Europe or East Asia.
The company disputes that part of Hountz’s story, saying it never told him there were other victims. And while it acknowledges unauthorized charges were made to his card at the site, a spokesperson maintains the card number must have been stolen elsewhere.

“We know whether or not a credit card number has been compromised at our site, and we know that this one wasn’t,” said Paul Capelli, an Amazon spokesman. Capelli said card numbers are encrypted, and any time they are accessed, there is a record. And as for a rash of victims, Capelli said that’s not true. “This was an example of a random occurrence.”
The story sounds similar to that of credit card fraud victim Don Garlock, chronicled on MSNBC in June. Garlock had $1,400 worth of charges deducted from his debit card account at Amazon. Garlock, a police investigator, discovered on his own that the purchases were made by Thailand-based hackers and that perhaps 20 others were also victimized by the group. In that situation, Amazon acknowledged the fraudulent card usage but said the card number was not stolen from its computers.
Hountz, a Portland, Ore., resident who works in computer security at an Internet company, thinks the facts in his case suggest his credit card was indeed stolen from Amazon:
The only fraudulent charges on the card were placed at Amazon.
Amazon recognized the charges as fraudulent on its own, without being notified by the bank or the victim. Hountz thinks that means the company knew how the card was stolen. Capelli says the company uses sophisticated processes to weed out bad charges but wouldn’t disclose details.
The billing address for Hountz’s credit card had been verified prior to the purchase, meaning the thief had access to that information from somewhere. Since Hountz had recently moved, he says only Amazon and his bank had access to his home address. He had just recently purchased something from the site with a gift certificate he received as a Christmas gift, and paid for overage with the credit card in question. Capelli maintains the address must have been pilfered somewhere else.
Hountz is also frustrated that Amazon did not notify him when the company discovered a fraudulent charge made to his account.
The company also told him it could only refund one of the charges because items connected to the other four charges had already been shipped.
“I think people should know about this. Maybe there’s something going on there,” Hountz said.
Capelli, meanwhile, stresses that credit card users are liable only for up to $50 when a card number is stolen — and even then, Amazon will refund $50 to victims when a thief charges merchandise at the site.
“Shopping at Amazon is guaranteed 100 percent safe,” he said. “We go above and beyond what you’ll find at most sites.”
Still, customers victimized by a fraudulent charge at Amazon or anywhere else have to notice it on their billing statements and dispute the charge with their bank — or they’ll pay personally for the theft. That means consumers need to methodically check their credit card statements.
Asked if users should pay careful attention to charges at Amazon posted around Dec. 29 and 30, Capelli said, “No more than any other day.”

I wonder if Mr. Hountz fell for a phishing scam.

reply to louband
i wonder if amazon accounts are being hacked, they find some stored cc numbers, then use them under the spoofed name. being a person stores the cc number on their amazon account, they wouldnt immediately question it, i dunno.

I *do* know it has just raised a new question almost two years later. someone actually lifted my mother's cc number from somewhere, made their own card, and tried to hit it in Belize (actually had the card present, when my mom's card was in her wallet). Now that I think back, her number was stored on amazon.com (and to my dismay, the password to her account wasnt all that difficult to figure out)
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babbling | How's the weather?

reply to louband
I wasn't aware Amazon kept your CC information by default.
Logged into my account and checked, sure enough they had 3 cards on file. Sheesh!
Thanks for the heads up!

reply to hitachi369

reply to louband
What is this AMZ Superstore, I think they just rip me off for $57.47 I'm contacting my bnk about this transaction.

It was an odd transaction, for me. I never used my CapitalOne card online for anything. Only in stores where I have to show my ID for it to process. The transaction was said to have originated from PA but the company charging, the phone number, was from overseas. CapitalOne called me, and said that they thought it was fradulent. It was and they cancelled my card immediately, refunded the money, and sent me a new card. I'm please with their work and glad that they were so prompt in helping me.

reply to louband
Hello

i'm french I have just seen that you had the same problem that me masi I could notice that nobody is of France and that this dependent problem has French does not appear null leaves has by me for was my part I to output of 342? + 6.85? ke day of the flow I brought up to date my account on jexiste.fr which is a shelterer of Web site if you have nouvele on this thank you to prevent me gablogan@gmail.com for infos my naviguateurs is mozilla firefox 1.5 my firewall is sygate firewall and my antivirus avast. For curious the my Web site with my music free [ techno) website removed Thanks and good bye

reply to louband
wha?