The Christmas season is the biggest retail shopping season of the year in the United States. Unfortunately, it is also a time when scammers and cybercriminals look to take advantage of unsuspecting shoppers, and Amazon is often at the center of those scams.
As shoppers look for deals this holiday season, Amazon has issued a warning to all of its more than 300 million customers, urging shoppers to be vigilant about possible scammers and cybercriminals.
The Most Dangerous Time of the Year?
While the Christmas season has been coined as “the most wonderful time of the year” by legendary singer Andy Williams, it is also one of the most dangerous times of the year when it comes to online scams.
According to research conducted by Guardio, the holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year for scammers, with Americans losing over $432 million to online shopping fraud in 2024. Guardio expects that 2025 will “shatter” that record thanks to AI-powered attacks.
“Black Friday is no longer just a shopping day,” Guardio warns. “It has become a hunting ground for cybercriminals armed with artificial intelligence.”
Guardio warns that shoppers are more distracted and hurried during the holiday season, making them more vulnerable to these types of attacks.
“The psychology behind holiday scams is simple,” Guardio says. “Distraction plus urgency equals vulnerability. Cyber criminals exploit this decision fatigue. They’re not just sending random attacks; they’re timing their scams to coincide with the exact moments when you’re most likely to click without thinking.”
Amazon Customers are Especially Targeted
According to Darktrace, Amazon customers are targeted more often than shoppers at any other online retailer.
“Amazon is the most mimicked brand, making up 80% of phishing attacks,” Darktrace warns.
The reason that Amazon is the most mimicked brand is simply because it’s the biggest online retail brand.
Given Amazon’s enormous popularity, cybercriminals assume that most of the email addresses or cell phone numbers they target will have an Amazon account, increasing their hit rate.
Amazon Issues a Warning
On Nov. 28, Amazon confirmed to USA Today that the company has been sending all of its customers warnings about avoiding impersonation scams, in which a scammer pretends to be an Amazon agent in order to obtain login information from victims.
While Amazon downplayed these messages to customers as “educational efforts” to help protect customers rather than alerts or warnings, the risk is still the same.
“Impersonation scams occur when a scammer pretends to be a trustworthy organization or person in order to steal your money or personal information. Impersonation scams are perpetrated in a wide variety of ways – by phone, email, text, or even by messaging you on social media,” Amazon writes on its website. “Scammers aim to have you make a payment of some kind, share personal information, or give them access to your computer. They do so by pretending to be a well-known organization with whom you’ve likely engaged.”
Amazon offered a few ways to avoid one of these scams.
- False urgency. Scammers often try to create a sense of urgency to persuade you to do what they’re asking.
- Asking for personal information. Scammers may try to persuade you to provide personal information over the phone such as addresses, payment information, account login credentials, or financial information.
- Purchases outside of Amazon. Scammers may try to ask you to send money outside of the Amazon website or mobile app through a third-party site or wire transfer.
- Payment via gift cards. Scammers may request you to purchase and exclusively pay with gift cards. They may ask for the gift card number, claim code, or PIN.
- Unexpected order. You may receive notification of an order or delivery for an item you weren’t expecting.
“If you received correspondence regarding an order you didn’t place, it likely wasn’t from Amazon,” Amazon warns.
How to Keep Yourself Safe
In order to better protect your account, Amazon suggests that all customers use a passkey.
“To securely sign in to your Amazon account, you can enable Passkey to simply use your face, fingerprint, or the PIN that you use to unlock your device. Passkeys are a convenient and secure way to sign in to your Amazon account without using a password,” Amazon writes.
Above all, be sure to be vigilant this holiday season to avoid these types of scams.
