Amazon is a legitimate company. Trusted companies sometimes use text alerts to confirm and double validate information. Doxing or doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the Internet. To make sure your information has not been doxed, you can use the bait and switch mindset to make sure you are not being told and sold false goods and false information. If you are contacted by an unexpected/unknown phone call text or email, always approach it with skepticism until you can validate and affirm the situation is 100% true. Scammers will prey on you, trusted companies are not afraid to work with you because they have nothing to hide. Scammers often flood you with fear and intimidation that is not true.

Recently a congregant received a suspicious Amazon scam text. Here are some clues that are some potential red-flag clues; So you can be more aware during the holiday season of scams by impersonating scammers. The image is below:

1. The 437 area code is used for telephone numbers in Ontario, Canada.
2. The Amazon logo is doctored for a security notice. The Amazon logo and security notice image provides a mask for the scammer.
3. The security notice is all bolded. This is used to get attention. The reason this bolding is suspicious is because bolding is typically used to draw attention to part of the message. Not the entire message. Legitimate companies would not bold the entire message. They want to calmly alert you because they want to keep you as a customer.
4. Awkward or incorrect grammar: Because scammers are often from other countries, scammers often use formal and awkward language. I will put corrected language in [ brackets]. Security Notice[:] Your account is logged in from Mumbai, India. [Awkward sentence: ‘Your account is logged in’. The two sentences don’t agree because it assumes you are not in your account. Just because you get a message does not mean that it is true. The scammers often use reverse psychology.] If this is not you, please verify your account in the secure link below.[‘in’ is awkward]. Legitimate companies will often gently ask you if you if you signed in from an unrecognized/new location or new device. Legitimate companies like Capital One have the sign in time and date and device that was used and encourage customers to use the legitimate website on different device.
5. Don’t click the non-sense link.
6. The scam link is a non-sensical and random string of letters. Remember, you are the customer. Logically, it needs to make sense to you.
7. The cellular carrier indicates the sender is not in your contact list. Remember that known numbers should be in your contact list so that random people and scammer.
8. Report Junk or other option provided by the carrier.
9. You can carefully take a picture of the message to show a trusted family member or friend. Trust yourself first and get second and third opinions by trusted tech savvy family and friends.
10. Report text message directly to reportascam@amazon.com. Many legitimate companies have ways to report scams on their actual websites. Always read and type carefully