By now most readers should be aware that in Amazon Marketplace all that glitters is not gold. Unfortunately, there are always scammers. Currently warns the State Criminal Police Office of Lower Saxony (LKA) in front of a stitch, to which one receives more and more hints. With this trick, the customers actually receive the ordered goods, but in the end they have to pay a significantly higher price and inevitably expect reminders.
So far, according to the LKA Lower Saxony, it has usually been the case that the scammers have hijacked an existing shop, flooded the marketplace with offers and accepted orders. The latter canceled them quickly, but then took the opportunity to bombard the customer with false payment requests – or even pointed out directly to Amazon that payment had to be made outside of Amazon. This is how the security measures were bypassed. What was striking about this scam was the insistence on external payment methods, mostly on accounts abroad, and the offering at bargain prices. Of course, the goods never reached the cheated party after payment.
In the meantime, probably too many people know the tricks or have become more sensitive. Because now there is a new scam that is being carried out more and more frequently. It works as follows: Here, too, a reputable shop in the Amazon Marketplace is first hijacked and then all kinds of offers are initiated. Here, too, the goods are usually cheaper than should actually be expected. In this case, the perpetrators actually use the payment via Amazon. The perpetrators now order the goods requested by the customer themselves with the correct address of the customer from a reputable but external dealer on account and have them delivered to the customer. However, you enter your own e-mail address. As a result, the person who ordered in the Marketplace does not notice the correspondence.
The customer who had ordered from the Amazon Marketplace subsequently receives his goods – unaware that they come from an external shop. Therefore, the scammer does not receive a negative rating, but possibly even a positive one. Now, logically, the problems are slowly starting to simmer in the background. Because the reputable shop is waiting for the bill to be paid, but of course the perpetrator doesn’t think about it and ignores incoming e-mails. It then takes quite a while, sometimes months, for the shop that was also cheated to send a reminder by post to the user who ordered from the fraudster in the Amazon Marketplace.
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stage 4
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stage 5
Now the recipients of the invoice often suspect a scam on the part of the reputable provider, since they are not aware of any order from the warning retailer. The actual scam often only comes to light through queries. But the criminals are long gone. However, there may be civil law issues between the duped, reputable shop and the cheated customer to be clarified.
How can you protect yourself? First of all, pay attention to reviews in the Amazon Marketplace and also to the usual warning signs: If, for example, a shop that otherwise mainly offered camera accessories suddenly sells clothes, something could be fishy. If a bargain also seems too good to be true, then there is a high probability that it is. If you then receive the goods, pay close attention to the sender and check the delivery note. If the designated shop is different, the matter may already be clear. You should at least follow up.
Anyone who has become a victim of the scam and finds this out upon delivery has the opportunity to quickly contact the actual retailer who sent the goods and have the customer account that was set up with their own address blocked. The goods can then be returned within the cancellation period.
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