Amazon has warned customers that emails offering them the chance to cancel their Prime membership are scams from fraudsters. It's a targeted attack that is, to say the least, unfortunate for the company.

According to Amazon, the bogus emails claim Amazon is raising the price of the Prime membership program and giving them the chance to cancel before it takes effect. The emails include a button marked "cancel subscription".

As is common with such scams, clicking the button takes the user through to a fake Amazon page that asks the user for personal details along with details of the payment card on their Amazon account. Supposedly this is to let Amazon confirm which account to cancel future Prime payments from, but is actually a way for the scammers to get the personal details.

In some cases the scam email includes other personal details about the user, designed to make it look more legitimate. These details are not the result of any security breach at Amazon. Instead they appear to come from the scammers cross-referencing the email address with leaks from other websites.

Legit Messages Also On Website

Amazon notes that users can check the current status of their Prime membership on the Amazon website or app. They also note the user account section of the website includes a feature called "Message Centre" that includes a copy of any genuine message that has previously been emailed to the user. (Source: theguardian.com)

Those who've received a scam email can check a dedicated site at https://amazon.com/reportascam. As well as letting people pass on details of the attempted scam, it includes advice for what to do if the user has provided any personal information to the scammers.

Prime Cancellation Controversial

There's a definite irony to the scam as Amazon is currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for allegedly enrolling people in Prime without their express consent through "manipulative, coercive or deceptive user-interface designs known as 'dark patterns'". (Source: reuters.com)

The lawsuit also says Amazon intentionally makes it too difficult to cancel the Prime membership, which automatically renews each year. Cynics would suggest it's exactly that difficulty which the scammers are playing on by purportedly offering an easy way to cancel.

What's Your Opinion?

Have you received a scam email? Do you think you'd fall for it? Could Amazon do any more to protect customers from scammers?