Mom's Amazon account was hacked at second time

[Burt]

I'm looking for advice as to whether we need to do more to protect my elderly mother from identity theft:

In December, she had a $56 charge on her credit card for an Amazon purchase. She hasn't used Amazon in years. I live 1,000 miles away but was in town, so I tried to get on her account, only to find that the password had been changed. With some difficulty we were able to regain access and change the password. I saw that a winter coat had been ordered and delivered to a teenage girl (found her on FB) in a small town 25 miles away. 8 other items for women had been ordered and "cancelled". The girl's family look like normal, well-adjusted middle class types although the general area is known for meth addicts.

We changed the password, notified the credit company, ordered a new card. So we were told by the credit card company that we had done everything correctly and nothing more was needed to be done. We've notified Amazon on the phone and filled out the online form as well.

Now this month Mom has gotten a new notice that another $89 charge was made, the old credit card wasn't accepted, and Amazon wants to know if she wants to pay by another method? Mom tried to get on her Amazon account and apparently the password has been changed again!

How is it that this criminal can so easily access her account and change her password? Does it suggest that they have access to her email account as well? Should I help her contact Amazon and this time terminate her account with them? It won't be easy to do remotely as I am back home now.

 

[alarmguy]

...

Now this month Mom has gotten a new notice that another $89 charge was made, the old credit card wasn't accepted, and Amazon wants to know if she wants to pay by another method? Mom tried to get on her Amazon account and apparently the password has been changed again!

How is it that this criminal can so easily access her account and change her password? Does it suggest that they have access to her email account as well? Should I help her contact Amazon and this time terminate her account with them? It won't be easy to do remotely as I am back home now.

I think your mom is being scammed and she is giving away her information/passwords. I know it must be hard being you are so far away.
First thing I would do with your mom is change ALL passwords on anything she has passwords too.

Here is why I think she is being scammed;
I would highly doubt Amazon would contact her because her payment was rejected and ask for another payment method. This happens a zillion times a day to Amazon, they couldn't possibly contact everyone. Amazon does not do that. When you order something, payment is processed right away, if payment is no good, it is rejected on the site on the spot when you are attempting to pay. She is communicating with scammers. Something is wrong here and she is giving access to someone who accesses her account and in this case they needed a new credit card number because you cancelled the old one.

Unless I am missing some other information I think this is what is taking place. Not saying I am right but in my mind I cant think of any other reason. I think as a start, if your mom gets any phone calls, emails, letters, communication of any type involving payment or access or passwords, account information, personal information, banking information she should do nothing, reply to no one, talk to no one and then pass that information on to you.

Edit - someone lower in this thread states they have received email saying a payment was rejected. There is no reason for people to be able to access your mom's account. She is giving away information someplace or someone she knows is getting it from her. Clearly a password change on all her accounts including email will correct this. Payment information can also be a scam tool even if the real Amazon does send out these emails.

 

[Nukeman7]

I'm looking for advice as to whether we need to do more to protect my elderly mother from identity theft:

How is it that this criminal can so easily access her account and change her password? Does it suggest that they have access to her email account as well? Should I help her contact Amazon and this time terminate her account with them? It won't be easy to do remotely as I am back home now.

Odds are high that she (and many elderly victims) has knowingly or unwittingly shared some personal access info with an associate or scammer who has nefarious intentions. This predatory behavior is common knowledge in the fraud risk management community. The only reasonable thing to do at this point is to cancel the Amazon account and closely monitor all transactions on her credit cards and banking accounts. Signing up for text notifications (sent to YOUR phone number) for all transactions over a limit ($50?) would be prudent.

How to Cancel My Amazon Account

 

[rijndael]

Make sure she's not sharing passwords between sites, it's pretty common for hackers to use username/pwd pairs at sites other than where they were compromised.

Enable 2 factor auth.

 

[Pablo]

Since they have hacked her email, you need to lose that first.

Then close everything else and start fresh. New cards, new numbers.

But really sounds like my parents, all online stuff should stop about now.

 

[Burt]

I think your mom is being scammed and she is giving away her information/passwords. I know it must be hard being you are so far away.
First thing I would do with your mom is change ALL passwords on anything she has passwords too.

Here is why I think she is being scammed;
I would highly doubt Amazon would contact her because her payment was rejected and ask for another payment method. This happens a zillion times a day to Amazon, they couldn't possibly contact everyone. Amazon does not do that. When you order something, payment is processed right away, if payment is no good, it is rejected on the site on the spot when you are attempting to pay. She is communicating with scammers. Something is wrong here and she is giving access to someone who accesses her account and in this case they needed a new credit card number because you cancelled the old one.

Unless I am missing some other information I think this is what is taking place. Not saying I am right but in my mind I cant think of any other reason. I think as a start, if your mom gets any phone calls, emails, letters, communication of any type involving payment or access or passwords, account information, personal information, banking information she should do nothing, reply to no one, talk to no one and then pass that information on to you.

Perhaps, but she's still pretty sharp at age 89. Writes down all her passwords in a notebook. Generally doesn't use the same password twice. I can't imagine her giving out her password on an account she hasn't used. I'll have her send the recent amazon note to me for signs of fraud.

I had her forward the amazon note requesting alternate payment of the $89 purchase. It looks completely legit. Click on the from address and it is the same amazon address. The provided links all connect to appropriate amazon sites.

 

[CKN]

She is being hacked. There are millions of people on Amazon and this situation is as rare as dinosaurs. Have you checked her computer for spy ware? My wife and I have received some very sophisticated "phishing" e-mails-so her being hacked is more likely than anything else.

 

[xspeedy]

If she isn't using Amazon, why does she have an account. First thing to do is run through all the things she no longer uses and close those things out. For whatever is left, she should only use unique passwords for each that are complex enough that they can't be easily guessed or brute forced. You'll also want to add MFA to any critical accounts where billing is involved. Best not to store credit card information on the sites where that is involved. You might set her up with a password vault like Google or Laspass or similar and store passwords there for her to use. You don't want to have stuff auto-populate on a page, so you can disable that.

 

[Hall]

I had her forward the amazon note requesting alternate payment of the $89 purchase. It looks completely legit. Click on the from address and it is the same amazon address. The provided links all connect to appropriate amazon sites.

Log into her Amazon account and see if the recent order is flagged as needing the payment method updated. If not, those emails are scams.

 

[Burt]

Odds are high that she (and many elderly victims) has knowingly or unwittingly shared some personal access info with an associate or scammer who has nefarious intentions. This predatory behavior is common knowledge in the fraud risk management community. The only reasonable thing to do at this point is to cancel the Amazon account and closely monitor all transactions on her credit cards and banking accounts. Signing up for text notifications (sent to YOUR phone number) for all transactions over a limit ($50?) would be prudent.

How to Cancel My Amazon Account

ormation on the sites where that is involved. You might set her up with a password vault like Google or Laspass or similar and store passwords there for her to use. You don't want to have stuff auto-populate on a page, so you can disable

Yes but to cancel her account, first she has to be able to log in to it. Not an easy task when she no longer has the password. I'll probably pursue that.

 

[Pew]

Her email has been compromised and everything else that uses that email to recover and reset login information. There's a good chance she never setup any sort of 2FA login - but that would not matter at this moment if the scammer still has access to her email. What I would suggest is change her email password asap then all her passwords associated with that email. The most common reason that I have experienced with this is because of phishing emails/texts where people will enter login information in fake look-a-like websites.

When I accidentally paid with a canceled card on amazon in last month, they sent me an email (below) which I double checked it's authenticity by checking my amazon orders.

 

[IveBeenRued]

Sounds like your mum needs to learn how to use passkeys.

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to...t_uuid=04IpBmWGZleS0I0J3epvMrC&test_variant=B

 

[97prizm]

I'm looking for advice as to whether we need to do more to protect my elderly mother from identity theft:

In December, she had a $56 charge on her credit card for an Amazon purchase. She hasn't used Amazon in years. I live 1,000 miles away but was in town, so I tried to get on her account, only to find that the password had been changed. With some difficulty we were able to regain access and change the password. I saw that a winter coat had been ordered and delivered to a teenage girl (found her on FB) in a small town 25 miles away. 8 other items for women had been ordered and "cancelled". The girl's family look like normal, well-adjusted middle class types although the general area is known for meth addicts.

We changed the password, notified the credit company, ordered a new card. So we were told by the credit card company that we had done everything correctly and nothing more was needed to be done. We've notified Amazon on the phone and filled out the online form as well.

Now this month Mom has gotten a new notice that another $89 charge was made, the old credit card wasn't accepted, and Amazon wants to know if she wants to pay by another method? Mom tried to get on her Amazon account and apparently the password has been changed again!

How is it that this criminal can so easily access her account and change her password? Does it suggest that they have access to her email account as well? Should I help her contact Amazon and this time terminate her account with them? It won't be easy to do remotely as I am back home now.

If your mom doesn't use Amazon can you close her account?

 

[Hall]

Yes but to cancel her account, first she has to be able to log in to it. Not an easy task when she no longer has the password. I'll probably pursue that.

You need to have her login details. Get in there and remove all credit cards too.

 

[Urshurak776]

My Dad's amazon account got hacked also. Weird thing is, they didn't change the ship to address, so the stuff they were buying was being shipped to him! Very odd.

The stuff they bought was odd also, like s-e-x toys........he was MORTIFIED. Amazon was pretty good about helping though.

 

[racer12306]

Assuming that you both are on windows, use Quick Assist

It's a built in app to windows 10 and newer and appears to be very easy to use, especially for her side of it. She can give you full control of her computer from your home.

 

[xspeedy]

Yes but to cancel her account, first she has to be able to log in to it. Not an easy task when she no longer has the password. I'll probably pursue that.

Do you have access to the email associated with the account? First step is see if you have access to that and then change that password. Then start doing password recoveries for things like Amazon and set new passwords.

 

[Burt]

My brother is going to change her passwords and terminate Amazon this afternoon.

 

[uc50ic4more]

I know it's inconvenient at best; and a perfect pain-in-the-hindquarters most of the time but 2-Factor/ Multi-Factor Authentication is going to stave off an extreme majority of technologically-based malfeasance. This will help, but not on its own prevent, human-based scams (like someone calling in and ascertaining a password).

This needs to be a 100%-of-the-time use for everyone if it's offered. This site offers 2FA/MFA as well.

And as has been mentioned absolutely set up a way to assume control of her screen such as QuickAssist. Go through the process a few times; set up shortcuts for her, whatever you have to do.

 

[AdmiralYoda]

My parents are 67/70. There is something about that generation and phone calls. Back in the day everyone in the house raced to the phone whenever it rang to make sure someone picked it up....like just in case the president himself might be calling. It must have been against the law to not pick up the phone when it rang.

They've gotten rid of their land-line but to this day they answer every single phone call that comes through their cell phones. Even though I keep telling them "if you don't know the number, don't answer it". Their response is always: "but what if it is important and someone needs to get in touch with me?".

Many times I've heard them say..."yes, this is he/she", and give out their address or confirm their phone number....finally to say they are not interested once they figure out it is a telemarketer, scammer, etc.

My mother is also guilty of clicking on every pop-up on her phone and computer that says she has a virus. I swear she has 5 different anti-virus programs on her phone and computer and wonders why they don't work.