Beware Of The Fake Amazon Calls This Christmas

It’s a usual weekday as I sip coffee while checking work mail—until my phone rings in the afternoon.

The call is then transferred to a man, who identifies himself as a senior executive from Amazon. Speaking in Hindi, he advises me to use Amazon Pay. As I already have an Amazon Pay account, he asks me to send the money.

Why send money and not make a purchase like any other Amazon transaction? He says that’s because the money first has to be transferred to an Amazon account. This “senior Amazon executive” then messages me details of a bank account to be linked with Amazon Pay.

• IFSC Code: PYTM0123456—a Paytm Payments Bank branch in Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh.

• Account number: 91834047497

• Beneficiary: AMAZON IN

I want answers to a few more questions.

• Why I am paying a Paytm account and not Amazon directly? He cites a tie-up between Paytm and Amazon (two competitors as partners—not convincing).
• Is he an Amazon employee or from a third party working for the online retailer? He claims to be a genuine Amazon employee.
• When I ask for details, he sends images of an Amazon ID card, PAN card and Aadhaar card on WhatsApp.

On Amazon Pay, he asks me to fill in the amount and mention ‘GIFT’ in the row below that reads ‘what is this for’.

Before paying, I ask for his email ID. He is reluctant, says that he isn’t allowed to share his email ID with customers. When I insist, he says it’s amazon+alphanumeric@gmail.com.

I ask why an Amazon employee doesn’t have an Amazon email ID? He knows his con is caught, hangs up and deletes images he shared with me.

While I sensed very early that there is something wrong, a couple of things are troubling. It’s easy to get phone numbers to contact people but how did this duo have details of my purchases on Amazon? That’s confidential data I haven’t shared with anyone, and Amazon isn't allowed to reveal because it will be a breach of privacy laws.

And, why does Paytm Payments Bank have an account for “AMAZON IN”. Amazon and Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm have yet to respond to BloombergQuint’s emailed queries.

So, beware of scamsters pretending to play Santa.

Merry Christmas!