7 Most Common Amazon Scams Right Now (And How to Avoid Them)

34,000+ — Amazon impersonation reports to the FTC in a single year (FTC, 2024)

Top 3 — Amazon is one of the most-impersonated brands in America (AARP)

4× — Older adults are 4× more likely to lose money to an Amazon impersonator (FTC Consumer Sentinel)

What Are the Most Common Amazon Scams Right Now?

Almost everyone has an Amazon account. So a message with that logo on it doesn't trip the alarm a stranger would. That's exactly why scammers reach for it. Amazon pulls in around $717 billion in sales a year, which one AARP fraud adviser called the "low-hanging fruit" of impersonation. It's the one company almost everybody deals with, so a fake Amazon message slips right into a normal day.

We'll be honest: a couple of these have made us look twice for a second, and reading scam emails is literally our job. The good news is that all seven scams below have a clear tell and a clear fix. Here they are at a glance.

Want a version your parents can keep by the phone? Our free Scam Defense Starter Kit has a printable cheat sheet built for exactly that.

Amazon Prime Scams: The Fake Renewal You Never Agreed To

Amazon Prime scams catch people who genuinely can't remember when their membership renews. The message says your Prime is about to auto-renew, usually at a strangely high price like $179 instead of the normal fee, and there's a button to "cancel" or "dispute" it.

That button is the trap. It opens a fake Amazon login page, and the second your parent types their email and password, the scammer owns the account. The inflated price is deliberate — built to make a calm person panic, because nobody wants to eat a $179 charge for something they forgot about.

A close cousin is the wave of Prime Day imposter scams that spike every July, when fake "Prime Day deal" and "renewal" emails flood inboxes right when everyone is actually shopping. Amazon says it's seeing more of these fake-renewal reports specifically, the ones quoting a price higher than you'd expect.

Spot it: A renewal or charge notice with a price higher than normal, plus a "cancel" button. Real renewal details live in your account, never in a panicky email.

Avoid it: Don't click anything. Open the Amazon app, or type Amazon.com yourself, and check Prime in your account settings. If the charge isn't there, the email is fake.

Amazon Email Scams: Fake Order Confirmations and "Locked Account" Alerts

Amazon email scams are the bread and butter of the whole operation. You get an email that looks exactly like Amazon, the logo, the fonts, the layout and it says there's a problem. Your account is locked. There's an order you didn't place for something expensive. Your payment "failed."

The goal is to make you click before you think. An order confirmation for a $1,300 laptop you never bought is engineered to make you go "wait, WHAT" and smash the link to cancel it. That link goes to a copycat site that grabs your login, or it quietly tries to load harmful software onto the device.

Scammers can fake the logo and the display name perfectly. What they can't fake is the real email address behind it. Tap or hover on the sender and you'll often find something like amazon-security-team@mail-verify.com instead of a true @amazon.com address. It's the same handful of tricks behind every fake email, which is why learning how to spot a phishing email covers most of them at once.

auto-confirm@amazon.com — Ends in @amazon.com. Period. No dashes, no extra words after.

amazon-security-team@mail-verify.com — Looks "Amazon-ish" but the real domain is mail-verify.com, not amazon.

Spot it: The sender address isn't a real amazon.com address, and the email pushes you to act fast over a problem you didn't know you had.

Avoid it: Never act from the email itself. Check your real order history in the app. If it's not there, it didn't happen.

Amazon Package Scams: The "Problem With Your Delivery" Text

Amazon package scams show up as a text more than an email these days. "Your Amazon package is held at our facility. Confirm your address and pay a small redelivery fee." There's a link, and the fee is tiny, a dollar or two, which is the part that makes it work.

Nobody bothers to dispute a dollar.

But the dollar was never the point. Your card number was. Once you enter your details on that fake page to pay the "fee," the scammer has the full card, and a $1 charge turns into a much bigger one. And because most of us genuinely do have something on the way at any given moment, the timing feels real. That's the whole con. It's a numbers game, and someone is always expecting a delivery.

Spot it: Any request to pay a fee to release or redeliver a package. Amazon does not charge you to redeliver something.

Avoid it: Track packages only inside the Amazon app or on Amazon.com. Delete the text. Don't tap the link "just to check," because tapping is sometimes enough.

Amazon Gift Card Scams: "Just Pay Us in Amazon Gift Cards"

Amazon gift card scams drain money the fastest, and they almost always start with a phone call. Someone claiming to be from Amazon (or your bank, or "the government," using an Amazon order as the hook) says there's fraud on your account. To "fix" it or "verify" you, they need you to buy Amazon gift cards and read them the numbers off the back.

Here's the thing every family member should have burned into their brain: no real company, agency, or bank is ever paid in gift cards. Ever.

Scammers love gift cards because they're untraceable and irreversible. The instant those numbers are read aloud, the money is gone. No chargeback, no clawback, nothing. The story shifts around (a refund, a fine, a fraud hold, a prize you won), but the ask never changes: go buy gift cards.

Spot it: Anyone asking to be paid in gift cards, for anything. That alone is the scam. Conversation over.

Avoid it: Hang up. Amazon will never ask you to settle a problem or pay for a service with gift cards. If someone says they will, they're lying.

Brushing Scams: The Amazon Package You Never Ordered

Here's a weird one. Brushing scams flip the script. Instead of taking something from you, a package shows up that you didn't order. Cheap stuff, usually. A phone case, some seeds, a face mask. Addressed to you, from a seller you've never heard of.

It feels harmless, even fun. Free stuff, right? But here's what's actually going on. A shady seller is using your name and address to post a "verified purchase" review of their own product — written by them, under your identity — to pump their ratings with fake five-star reviews. This is one corner of the wider world of Amazon review scams, where bogus reviews make junk products look trustworthy. The bigger worry is the data: if a stranger has your name and address plugged into a fake order, you want to know how they got it.

Spot it: A package you never ordered, often with no clear sender, sometimes with slightly wrong address details.

Avoid it: You can keep the item — it's legally yours. But check your Amazon account for orders you didn't place, change your password, and report it to Amazon so they can kill the fake reviews.

Amazon Return Scams: The Refund That's "Too Generous"

Amazon return scams are the patient, polished version of the gift card call, and they go after people who would never fall for an obvious one. Here's how it tends to play out.

Your dad gets a call about a refund on his account, or a return he doesn't remember making. The "representative" is calm and helpful. Not pushy at all, which is the point. They offer to sort the refund out for him, and to do it, they just need to remote into his computer to "help."

Then comes the trick. They pretend to send the refund, show him a number on his screen, and "accidentally" add a zero. "Oh no, we sent you $5,000 instead of $500. You have to send the difference back or I'll lose my job." Except no money ever arrived. They just doctored what he saw on his own screen. And now a kind man is wiring his real savings to fix a mistake that never happened. The FTC has tracked this exact Amazon refund con for years, with a median reported loss of around $1,000 per victim.

Spot it: Anyone asking for remote access to your device, or claiming they refunded you too much and need money back.

Avoid it: Never let someone you didn't call control your screen. Real refunds go back to your original payment method on their own, with nothing for you to "send back."

Amazon Mystery Box Scams: "Unclaimed" Pallets and Cheap Boxes

Amazon mystery box scams live on social media, not in your inbox. You'll see an ad or a reel: "Unclaimed Amazon return pallets, $5 each!" or a mystery box promising hundreds of dollars of electronics for almost nothing. The pitch leans on a real thing, Amazon does liquidate returns which is exactly what makes the fake version believable.

But the ones flooding Facebook and TikTok are almost always fakes. You pay, and you get nothing, or you get a box of literal junk worth a fraction of what you handed over. Some versions are sneakier, quietly signing you up for a recurring charge buried in the fine print. The "too cheap to be true" price is the entire hook, aimed straight at the part of your brain that can't resist a deal.

Spot it: Deeply discounted "Amazon mystery box" or "return pallet" deals advertised on social media by accounts you don't know.

Avoid it: If you actually want overstock or returns, buy only through Amazon's official outlet or known liquidation sites. A stranger's reel is not a store.

How to Avoid Amazon Scams (The Rules That Work on All Seven)

Notice the pattern? Every scam above is just a costume. Once you know the rules underneath, you can avoid Amazon scams without memorizing all seven. These are the ones to teach your parents, because they hold up every single time.

Those three rules alone kill most of the phone scams on their own. For everything else, the move is identical: don't act from the message. Whatever the text or email claims, close it. Open the Amazon app or type Amazon.com into your browser yourself, then check your orders, your Prime status, and your messages. A real problem will be sitting right there. If it isn't there, the message was fake. And don't google "Amazon customer service" to find a number, scammers buy ads and plant fake support numbers that land right at the top of the results.

Two quiet habits do a lot of heavy lifting too. Turn on two-step login, which texts a code to your phone so a stolen password alone isn't enough. And use a different password for Amazon than you use anywhere else.

What to Do If You Already Paid or Clicked

If you (or your dad) already clicked, typed something in, or paid, don't spiral. Move fast and in order. This happens to sharp people constantly.

clicked a link but typed nothing You're probably fine. Close it and run a security scan to be safe.

entered your Amazon password Change it right now in the real app and turn on two-step login. Change it anywhere else you reused it.

paid by card Call your bank using the number on the back of the card. They can freeze it and reverse fraudulent charges.

paid by gift card Call the gift card company immediately (number on the back), report it, then tell your bank. Acting fast sometimes recovers part of it.

gave someone remote access Disconnect from the internet, run a malware scan, change your passwords from a different device, and call your bank if any financial site was open during the session.

None of this is a lecture. It's a checklist. Work down it and breathe.

How to Report Amazon Scams

Reporting takes two minutes and helps Amazon and investigators spot patterns and warn the next person.

1. Report it to Amazon. You can do this whether or not you're a customer. (amazon.com/reportascam)

2. Report it to the FTC. Plain form, no account needed. Every report feeds a database investigators use to chase scammers. (reportfraud.ftc.gov)

3. If money or personal information was lost, file with the FBI. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center handles fraud with real financial loss. (ic3.gov)

4. If it arrived as a text, forward it to 7726 (SPAM). Your phone carrier uses these reports to block the number for everyone else.

Want the click-by-click version with screenshots? Here's our full guide on how to report phishing emails and scams.

One Forward Is All It Takes

Your mom didn't tap that link. She texted you first. That instinct, checking with someone before clicking is worth more than any app. So send this to her, and to your dad, and to the family group chat. The next fake Amazon text won't stand a chance.

Turn these checks into instincts — built for parents and grandparents. Our Scam-Savvy course walks them through the patterns behind every scam above, in plain language, in under an hour.