Credit card fraud on Amazon

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
A few days ago I made a couple of purchases on Amazon for my Kindle and my credit card was correctly debited by amazon.com in dollars.

The following day and for the next four days my credit card was debited for amounts just below and above 9 Euros. I initially thought the debit was for another future purchase I made at Amazon, though I was a little surprized as usually Amazon debit only when they ship the product, but I wasn't expecting to be debited 4 times.

Yesterday I contacted amazon using their chat service. After some considerable exchanges it was clear that someone had created an account at Amazon with my credit card. Amazon cancelled the purchases and have promised to refund me, but were unable to cancel the fake account as it had been created at amazon.de. I was told to contact amazon.de.

I did so again in chat mode, using my broken German, but the representative was very responsive and immediately forwarded my story to their fraud department. He managed to cancel the fake account and confirmed that the fake purchases were in the process of being refunded.

A couple of hours later I got a message from the fraud department, which invited me to block my credit card, which I immediately did. There have been no further fraudulent charges on the card.

The behaviour of the hacker was odd. He was clever in only making small purchases, which might easily have gone unnoticed. However, although registering on amazon.de, the purchases were for digital versions of English language books. Amazon refused to give any further details of the fraudster.

I found the chat contact with Amazon to be efficient and responsive, with no waiting times to be connected.

2
Small purchases on stolen CCs are usually to find out if it works before going for a big one.

Glad it‘s sorted, though you may get a charge for a new credit card...

3
It used to be one purchase before the big one.

I always wondered whether they make multiple purchases from the same site these days, before making the big one as the credit card fraud software lets the small-amount purchases through because they are a small amounts and they then let the big one through as the customer has already made a few purchases, without complaint, at the same online store.

I could be way off here though.

4
When my details were stolen, UBS didn't charge me for a new card.

5
I had all of my credit cards that were saved on Amazon go through fraudulent transaction where the fraudster purchased “Amazon Prime”. Obviously I had to cancel all the cards but the most annoying thing is that I had a Revolut Metal card ,which I cancelled but still had the metal card which is usable but since I called it, I had to revert to the plastic one.

There’s a pandemic of fraudulent charges with “Amazon Prime” transaction as a tester and I wish Amazon did more to combat those. Going forward, I wish all e-trailers use two separate independent databases to store 2 halves of credit card details so even if the account is hacked then they don’t get to see the full card details.