Over the weekend, Amazon customers reported receiving confusing emails thanking them for purchasing gift cards to Google Play, Mastercard and Hotels.com that they had never bought.
The customers received the emails between Saturday and Sunday and took to social media to see if others had a similar experience.
WARNING ⚠️
Amazon potential scam. It’s all over Reddit right now. I got three emails like this about gift card purchases for #Mastercard, #GooglePlay, and https://t.co/yBxXM8GNtk. #scam #Amazon #phishing #giftcard
What the hell Amazon?!? pic.twitter.com/xBqoFEvOlq— Rachel Martin (@RacheLaneMartin) October 1, 2023
Amazon’s customer service team experienced a surge of inquiries about the issue, CNBC reported, with one agent mentioning that they had received three consecutive questions about it. Because it’s common for scammers to disguise compromising links in the form of seemingly legitimate emails, many affected customers were worried their data had been compromised.
“DID ANYONE ELSE GET MULTIPLE AMAZON GIFT CARD EMAILS ? ITS LIKELY A SCAM DONT CLICK IT,” one user posted on X on Saturday.
Thankfully, Amazon acknowledged the issue and confirmed it was a system error, not the work of fraudsters.
“An error in our system resulted in an order confirmation email being sent to customers who did not purchase a gift card,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC. “We are emailing these customers to inform them of the error and apologize for the inconvenience.”
An Amazon customer service representative added to the outlet that they are “sorry” to any users who experienced the alarm but that “every account” is “safe,” and customers should disregard the messages.