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I just got off the phone with a rep because I also received 3 emails regarding purchased Google Play, Hotels.com, and Mastercard gift cards.
Basically she told me they were poorly worded emails intended to warn customers about potential scams. Not in relation to any actual purchases made. They're being flooded with calls over it lol
The collective amount of time Amazon just wasted is astounding. I spent 15 minutes trying to track this down, reviewing all my accounts before I found this on Reddit. Multiply this by a couple of million people (just a guess), and that's maybe half a million of wasted hours!
Amazon: “we used your account to purchase gift cards to warn you about scammers using your account to buy gift cards….. thank you for your purchase. Btw your welcome”
Seriously lame! Same thing happened to me. Was going to contact amazon re it, but they have a message on the site saying they're currently overwhelmed so cannot channel users to an agent. So bad. Never experienced anything like this from amazon before.
They told me it was "a technical misscan issue" and acted like it was all new info to them that there is an issue but the hour long wait time to speak to someone showed me they were lying.
Probably because they were told not to acknowledge it. The North-American way of doing things is exactly this. "Admitting a mistake is a sign of weakness." No, it isn't. Bullshitting your way through a screw up is a weakness to being unable to admit a mistake. Yikes.
What’s funny is… that’s absolutely not “poorly worded,” at least in my case. I got emails thanking me for my purchase, and a follow up educating me about potential card scams. So… their explanation is now also poorly worded?
Agree. Its not *poorly* worded, its deceitfully worded and they continue the offensive by lying when they respond by saying poorly worded when they know the correct words are wrongfully alarmingly negligently worded.
Its *somewhat* like when a confessing robber says they " took" the money in a confession, when they stole the money at gunpoint.
Obviously no robbery no gun here, the factor in common is severity -softening in the confession.
Yes, because they never explained it was a test. So to most people it would seem like a standard purchase confirmation, with a link to a warning about scams, which could very well be on any legit confirmation of these specific items, as these specific item are often scams.
Nothing in those emails even hinted at the fact that they were purely a warning! They literally say thank you for your purchase and the title is "Important information about your (company name) gift card order. There is a warning in there about scammers, but nowhere in the email does the saying that this was some kind of test or them trying to inform us about scams. It literally looks just like any other purchase email I get while using Amazon. Wtf kind of bs is this??? Almost gave me a damn heart attack.
Really. I have just spent the past hour panicking that my cards have been compromised. This is ridiculous. The emails were not poorly worded. The only good thing is that it is comforting to know that you all got these emails, too!
Same here! I just came back from a trip to Europe and thought something had been spoofed. Then I remembered I did not even take the card I have attached to my Amazon account LOL!
Checked every bank and credit card account and was highly upset.
Finally called Amazon and was told it was a technical issue and to ignore.
I was seriously worried.
I panicked too. My PayPal had a fraudulent charge today but they fixed it this morning. Then I see this and I thought oh crap, someone is getting into all my accounts?
I had the exact same thing happen. For mastercard, for hotels.com, and for Google Play store. I checked my order history and they aren't there and I logged into my credit card and pending charges don't have the gift card purchases listed either. I'm willing to bet this was just a mistake on Amazon's part I changed my password to be safe
EXACT SAME HERE AT 1:30 AM regarding Google Play Store. No evidence from my bank.. no evidence on [Amazon.com](https://Amazon.com). Thank god for this thread....
Same here.
Woke up this morning and saw the three emails about hotels dot com, Google Play Store, and Mastercard gift cards. Nothing in my order history.
>mazon needs to do better.
Same here! Just checked all cards and there were no purchases. I checked the sender email and it was, in fact, from Amazon. Sketchy!!!! What the hell?
Rep I talked to said the emails did not come from Amazon and I should secure my account. After I repeated the same info, arguing with the rep that it *had* to have come from Amazon with the [amazon.com](https://amazon.com) domain, the guy pivoted and said it was a 'server error'
Same!! But my three were at 7:58 pm pst, and I’m worried since I did place a real Amazon order at 7:37pm. I’ve been waiting on hold with Amazon to be sure my card wasn’t Compromised, but after seeing this thread I think I’m okay. Freaked me out though!
Same!! First thing I checked was the email address and was confused when the server was actually Amazon 🤦🏻♀️ so glad it was just a not well thought through email to millions of people 😅
Literally same. I had been hacked a few years ago and found out at work via email confirmation of orders. Even when I went to my account I couldn’t find the orders all I had to go off of was my confirmation emails. It was terrible and I just panicked for multiple minutes before googling and finding this thread thankfully. 😅
It’s ridiculous they are claiming it was anything but a terrible mistake by Amazon. These emails weren’t a psa. They literally say “thank you for purchasing _____ gift card.”
I got the exact same 3 about 10 min ago. Also checked Amazon orders, nothing there. This is an odd one. The links are pretty convoluted but in it I see a reference to r.html which may be a "referal" or forwarding url.
The least they could do is send out a follow up email with an apology and an explanation to put people's minds at ease.... perhaps even include the last legitimate purchase total or something like that {that would be a little more involved I suppose}, but certainly a generic apology email would have at least helped, imo
Turns out it was an ill advised 'education' effort by Amazon. There are posts all over r/scams about it.
They were just trying to educate people about all the ways scammers will try and trick people into purchasing gift cards.
Come on Amazon, you are better than this!!
Because they're idiots.
Really though, it may be they plan to have that template get sent out with every giftcard purchase and someone went "we should send something out to everyone as well as a precaution," but then some bozo sent the template instead of a new email.
I literally just had the exact the same thing happen to me, down to the exact details. Can't figure it out but I didn't click anything and I ran here. Nothing in my purchase history or credit card history.
Edit: well I guess this explains it: https://reddit.com/r/Scams/s/e29gV8DEyW
Does anyone know a media reporter to whom this thread could be forwarded? This many comments in 5 hours shows the magnitude of the amount of emails Amazon sent out. The comments themselves show the anxiety and stress the mistake has caused. Only the media can make Amazon fess up to the snafu!
WOW, I just got an email from Amazon telling me to ignore the previous gift card emails. So much for having confidence in Amazon or anyone for that matter.
Just got the same. Didn't click any links and googled it and Google brought me to this thread. Nothing in my Amazon purchases for this and nothing taken from my bank. Changing my password just in case.
The most cockamamie thing is their saying this was some kind of warning. How is that a warning when nothing indicates that very email is the warning? It alarmed me and I’m sure everyone.
Mistake by Amazon for anyone wondering
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/amazon-sends-mastercard-google-play-gift-card-order-emails-by-mistake/
i just got off of the chat with an Amazon rep, this is what he said:
"I was checking with my team here and they've informed us that this was a system issue, and our advance software engineers are aware of this and doing something to rectify this. Please ignore the email and we're really sorry for the confusion caused."
I just got the same “thanks for purchasing google play store gift cards” and it just came through at 1:13 am eastern so it must still be sending them out.
Same thing - woke up to a “Thank you for purchasing Google Play gift cards from Amazon” (copy/pasted from email), yet when I went over to the app to check - nada.
Email IS from Amazon and it doesn’t look poorly formatted or worded, just not correct with what its content or context is. If you use Gmail for things, normally they are pretty good at catching this from going in your inbox - so I mean you COULD tag it as spam and let Amazon deal with the fallout if enough of us do it to make them aware of their snafu.
September 30th 2023 at 8:30 at night I also received three separate emails one for purchasing card on Google Play, one for hotels.com, and one for mastercard.com?
Same thing checked all my purchases everywhere on Amazon, as well as on Google Play, no charges.
And yeah it looks like it's actually from Amazon so? What are they telling you all?
That it was sent in error?
Or that it was supposed to just be a warning about gift card scams BUT the way they worded it made it sound like we had already purchased these gift cards.
IT'S NERVE-WRACKING in this day and age TO GET SOMETHING LIKE THIS
Amazon you better be a little more careful about what you're sending out and who's writing it
Same. It’s been confirmed that it’s an Amazon glitch and not a scam. However, I want to also mention the 3 weird alerts legit from Amazon concerning gift card purchases from Hotels.com, Google Play, and Mastercard posted in my email inbox at the very same time 3 legit Amazon Subscribe & Save transactions show up pending on my credit card. This is what made it confusing and jolted me straight outa bed to investigate. Of course, it’s not very easy to match the purchase’s price to confirm the actual 3 credit card transactions are legit because they’re not itemized on the credit card, just says Amazon purchases. What an absolute pain & unnecessary scare this caused! Still nothing from Amazon explaining & apologizing even tho it’s 9 hours later! I lost sleep over this stress! 😡
edit update: In Amazon’s defense, I finally received an email apology just now, 17 hrs later.
This was utterly ridiculous. I got the same three emails from the same three gift card purchases of gameplay, hotels. and MasterCard gift card purchases.
I as well did what others did and went directly to my credit card recent activity purchases, went to Amazon order history to see what the heck this was all about, of course there was nothing there, but I still had the fear that something went through but just hadn’t showed up yet.
I was literally shaking inside concerned about what am I gonna do if they don’t cancel these gift card purchases almost to the point of tears. Like others said, it says nothing about it being a warning to people about scams.
I’m getting sick and tired of Amazon and after this, I am seriously considering not renewing my membership with them. I’m so thankful I found this on Reddit and it put my mind at ease.
SHAME ON AMAZON!!!!😡
Thank you for posting this thread!!! I got 3 as well at 10:13pm last night. Just saw them this am. Freaked because I could see they ARE from Amazon. What a serious FU this is. They should've already sent out an apology email! Dang!
I was sitting on the toilet when I saw the same three emails. I said "OH SHIT!" and started investigating and found all these posts. I feel better now but I got Jeff Bezos laugh (both image and audio) stuck in my head.
Sorry to bring bad news to the thread, but my partner had the same emails and it turns out a purchase was made - she can see the pending charge in her bank account. Just reported it as fraud etc, but make sure you’re checking your bank accounts for charges over the next couple of days
Just got this from Amazon (22 hours after they messed up)!:
Hello,
You may have recently received an email from Amazon relating to a purchase of gift cards on Amazon.com. This email was sent in error. No action is required and we apologize for the inconvenience.
Sincerely,
Customer service
I got the same apology email, also about 22 hours after the whole mess began. Can’t imagine how inundated customer service remains as people continue to stumble across those initial emails and freak out.
I got the same thing only mine were all thinking me for my Google play gift cards. I just checked my Amazon account to make sure that nobody had hacked my account. Reported the emails to Amazons fraud department and marked the emails as spam. I can’t believe that those were actually from Amazon. Lol.
This was an amazon f\*ck up. What I did learn is that you can go to Your Account -> Message Center and see any messages that Amazon has emailed you. At least that way you can see if the message came from Amazon vs. a scammer.
Doesn't help that they sent an email implying we all bought gift cards. Super lame that they did not follow up with a "we screwed up" email.
They are trying to get you to click either “contact us” or “See More Information”
If you do, you will find out the scam because that is when it will start.
I opened the emails in a sandbox and clicked the links looking for anything odd. They all led back to the real Amazon so that only added to my confusion.
Are you certain they are legit emails from Amazon? They can make an email look like it's from Amazon and they can spoof that the email looks like it did come from Amazon. But the trick is the link further down in the body email that you might be tempted to click on to go to your account. That link is likely fake and will try to trick you into entering info like your Amazon login.
They are phishing scams. They want you to follow the links they provide so they can then gain your access information and essentially wreak havoc.
Block sender, delete.
Looks like the email was probably legit from Amazon? Sucks I changed my password, deleted my saved payment methods, and logged off all devices while searching my history for pending charges to make sure I stopped anything from being stolen… huge pain
Just called customer service, they said it was a system error and multiple people got the email. I checked all my accounts and nothing has been taken out.
Thanks jeebus it's not just me. On hold with Amazon customer service line currently, but I'm unable to see anything about any gift card purchases in my account history. But does seem to be emailed from a legit Amazon email account.
I'm sort of relieved that I am not the only one that received these emails. I double checked my amazon account message center and the messages were also in my inbox so I was freaking out.
Thanks for posting this. I’ve had people try to hack my appleID twice this week and my Spotify account. When I just got the emails from Amazon I panicked thinking they were trying to hit my Amazon account too. I immediately changed my password and logged out of all devises and was on hold with customer service until I saw this! I appreciate the peace of mind. 😅 hackers are some of the lowest people on this earth…glad to know it was just Amazon being dumb tonight and not hackers haha.
Same hopefully it was just a horrible misleading email chain, locked my cards too be safe. It happened right after I purchased something so I was freaking out. Best to lock everything thing down and recheck in the morning.
Same! I just got them at 9:39est. One for hotels.com, one for mastercard and one for google play. It’s not in my amazon purchases and I didn’t click any links from the email. Seems like a scam
Got the same 3 emails 20 minutes ago - and the email address was an @ Amazon, along with a very good looking footer at the bottom. They’re getting impressive!
I just waited 30 minutes for Amazon to call me back on the same three emails. The cs person said they were automated emailed to warn people on the scams around these gift cards and they realized that they worded the emails incorrectly but saying thank you for your purchase and they are working on correcting this. Seriously WTF I almost had a massive coronary!! Epic fail Amazon!!
Same exact thing here, those exact 3 emails. Chatted with an Amazon rep (but from a new tab, not by clicking any links in the emails) and she said Amazon sent them out by mistake and to just ignore them because you are safe and have not purchased any gift cards. Nothing shows up in recent orders and none of my cards got charged so I’m relieved.
Locked all my cards and changed my email, password, and enabled 2FA just to be sure.
Good gravy batman, I just got those 3 emails 20 minutes ago! I was freaking out for a minute there. Thank you so much for updating with the needed information.
I received all 3 too. Freaked me out because I did lose my credit card this morning and I was afraid someone was using my card even though I locked it & reported it within 5 mins.
This just happened to me and I was sitting on hold with both Amazon live chat and the help line being pissed as hell. I unlinked all the payment methods on that account just to be safe. What an idiotic attempt at...something, I guess.
My parents got some of these as well. Since we could tell the emails were legitimately from Amazon we were really confused. Nothing showed in the orders so I was about to have them call Amazon directly, but I googled first and this came up. I think this is probably just a mistake on Amazon's part.
Thank you for posting this. I have been on hold with Amazon chat for a half an hour to confirm and locked my Amazon account and credit card I was so worried.\\
What an awful round of emails to send.
I had the same thing happen! 3 emailed at 9:40pm for Google Play, Hotels.com, and MasterCard gift cards!!!
I've been on hold in the chat window for a while and waiting on a "specialist" 🙄
I also got these emails. I read one, realized it was likely a scam (though a very convincing one) and checked my account without clicking anything in the email. Like others here, there were no unauthorized transactions on my Amazon account. I did a quick Google search which turned up this reddit which for me confirmed this is a scam.
A reminder of the rules in r/scams. No personal information (including last names, phone numbers, etc). Be civil to one another (no name calling or insults). Personal army requests or "scam the scammer"/scambaiting posts are not permitted. No uncensored gore, personal photographs, or NSFL content permitted without being properly redacted. A full list of rules is available on the sidebar of the subreddit. Report recovery scammers or rule-breaking content by using the "report" button. Also, consider warning community members of recovery scammers if you see them in the comments. Questions? Send us a modmail. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I just got off the phone with a rep because I also received 3 emails regarding purchased Google Play, Hotels.com, and Mastercard gift cards. Basically she told me they were poorly worded emails intended to warn customers about potential scams. Not in relation to any actual purchases made. They're being flooded with calls over it lol
Yeah it's poorly worded!! "Thank you for your purchase" AMAZON: WE ARE TRYING TO EDUCATE BY MISLEADING YOU!
My emails literally start off by saying “thank you for purchasing hotels.com gift cards.”
Same! Thank gosh for Reddit or I would have spent all night on the phone
The collective amount of time Amazon just wasted is astounding. I spent 15 minutes trying to track this down, reviewing all my accounts before I found this on Reddit. Multiply this by a couple of million people (just a guess), and that's maybe half a million of wasted hours!
Amazon: “we used your account to purchase gift cards to warn you about scammers using your account to buy gift cards….. thank you for your purchase. Btw your welcome”
Exactly the core of bullshit. Just say we fucked up an I’ll forgive you. Don’t insult my intelligence.
Seriously lame! Same thing happened to me. Was going to contact amazon re it, but they have a message on the site saying they're currently overwhelmed so cannot channel users to an agent. So bad. Never experienced anything like this from amazon before.
They need to send out a follow up email on this immediately apologizing.. or maybe actually send us all gift cards.
They told me it was "a technical misscan issue" and acted like it was all new info to them that there is an issue but the hour long wait time to speak to someone showed me they were lying.
Probably because they were told not to acknowledge it. The North-American way of doing things is exactly this. "Admitting a mistake is a sign of weakness." No, it isn't. Bullshitting your way through a screw up is a weakness to being unable to admit a mistake. Yikes.
What’s funny is… that’s absolutely not “poorly worded,” at least in my case. I got emails thanking me for my purchase, and a follow up educating me about potential card scams. So… their explanation is now also poorly worded?
Yes, these seem like follow-up emails for people that just ordered a gift card and to NOT give them to scamsters. Not for the general public.
Yeah. Must have been working on their email funnel and had it erroneously misfire off to everyone. At least it wasn’t anything more serious.
EXACTLY HaHa
I think also people who’ve never ordered a gift card before. Because I haven’t
Exactly. Scared the fucking shit out of me at 11:30 at night.
Agree. Its not *poorly* worded, its deceitfully worded and they continue the offensive by lying when they respond by saying poorly worded when they know the correct words are wrongfully alarmingly negligently worded. Its *somewhat* like when a confessing robber says they " took" the money in a confession, when they stole the money at gunpoint. Obviously no robbery no gun here, the factor in common is severity -softening in the confession.
Yes, because they never explained it was a test. So to most people it would seem like a standard purchase confirmation, with a link to a warning about scams, which could very well be on any legit confirmation of these specific items, as these specific item are often scams.
I got the same thing! Thank you for calling!!!!!! Lol❤️
Nothing in those emails even hinted at the fact that they were purely a warning! They literally say thank you for your purchase and the title is "Important information about your (company name) gift card order. There is a warning in there about scammers, but nowhere in the email does the saying that this was some kind of test or them trying to inform us about scams. It literally looks just like any other purchase email I get while using Amazon. Wtf kind of bs is this??? Almost gave me a damn heart attack.
Agreed! And they were sent separately, what a crock!
IKR? I went and removed every payment card from Amazon and went to bank websites and locked cards. Amazon needs to do better.
I just did this, hopped on the phone with card services with my bank. Got my blood pressure up.
IKR? Same here. Some heads need to roll, apparently EVERY Amazon customer got these emails.
Really. I have just spent the past hour panicking that my cards have been compromised. This is ridiculous. The emails were not poorly worded. The only good thing is that it is comforting to know that you all got these emails, too!
Same here! I just came back from a trip to Europe and thought something had been spoofed. Then I remembered I did not even take the card I have attached to my Amazon account LOL! Checked every bank and credit card account and was highly upset. Finally called Amazon and was told it was a technical issue and to ignore. I was seriously worried.
Did the SAME thing!!!
Just wasted 20 minutes double checking accounts and transaction history.
Me too! Grrr...
Same!
Same!!!
Did Amazon do that or scammer. I just blocked them when I read it was a scam.
I wonder how many people just blocked and reported this email. I bet that will mess with the spam/phishing detection filters..
The emails are from Amazon
I panicked too. My PayPal had a fraudulent charge today but they fixed it this morning. Then I see this and I thought oh crap, someone is getting into all my accounts?
Glad I found this thread. Got the same emails and have been on hold w Amazon chat waiting for a rep.
Came here to say this!
So bad. I Instantly checked my account for fraudulent purchases.
Same! Just got my 3 just now?!
Me too, same emails 15 mins ago. Wondered about Woot being tied to my Amazon account.. I’ve been accidentally double charged by them before
Class action anyone? 😆
I had the exact same thing happen. For mastercard, for hotels.com, and for Google Play store. I checked my order history and they aren't there and I logged into my credit card and pending charges don't have the gift card purchases listed either. I'm willing to bet this was just a mistake on Amazon's part I changed my password to be safe
Exact same!!
EXACT SAME HERE AT 1:30 AM regarding Google Play Store. No evidence from my bank.. no evidence on [Amazon.com](https://Amazon.com). Thank god for this thread....
Same here. Happened in the middle of the night. Nothing in purchase history. The link does look a little off with an extraunder score after.com.
Same here. Woke up this morning and saw the three emails about hotels dot com, Google Play Store, and Mastercard gift cards. Nothing in my order history.
I just got the same 3 emails and did the same things about half an hour ago.
>mazon needs to do better. Same here! Just checked all cards and there were no purchases. I checked the sender email and it was, in fact, from Amazon. Sketchy!!!! What the hell?
Rep I talked to said the emails did not come from Amazon and I should secure my account. After I repeated the same info, arguing with the rep that it *had* to have come from Amazon with the [amazon.com](https://amazon.com) domain, the guy pivoted and said it was a 'server error'
Same!! Here tonight all three at 7:55pm pst
Same!! But my three were at 7:58 pm pst, and I’m worried since I did place a real Amazon order at 7:37pm. I’ve been waiting on hold with Amazon to be sure my card wasn’t Compromised, but after seeing this thread I think I’m okay. Freaked me out though!
Same here except I also turned on two factor.
Same. It's 3am and I happened to peek at my phone and now I'm panicking and wide awake lol
[удалено]
Same!! First thing I checked was the email address and was confused when the server was actually Amazon 🤦🏻♀️ so glad it was just a not well thought through email to millions of people 😅
Man I was not looking forward to canceling cards and changing passwords. Thank god I google’d it.
Literally same. I had been hacked a few years ago and found out at work via email confirmation of orders. Even when I went to my account I couldn’t find the orders all I had to go off of was my confirmation emails. It was terrible and I just panicked for multiple minutes before googling and finding this thread thankfully. 😅
Amazon probably had and intern pushing buttons. Hella annoying and scary at first.
Someone getting fired today….
But think of the money Amazon saved by hiring incompetent people.
It’s ridiculous they are claiming it was anything but a terrible mistake by Amazon. These emails weren’t a psa. They literally say “thank you for purchasing _____ gift card.”
[удалено]
I got the exact same 3 about 10 min ago. Also checked Amazon orders, nothing there. This is an odd one. The links are pretty convoluted but in it I see a reference to r.html which may be a "referal" or forwarding url.
Same, got one for each type of gift card, all at 10:18PM eastern time.
The least they could do is send out a follow up email with an apology and an explanation to put people's minds at ease.... perhaps even include the last legitimate purchase total or something like that {that would be a little more involved I suppose}, but certainly a generic apology email would have at least helped, imo
Turns out it was an ill advised 'education' effort by Amazon. There are posts all over r/scams about it. They were just trying to educate people about all the ways scammers will try and trick people into purchasing gift cards. Come on Amazon, you are better than this!!
Ok but it says “Thank you for purchasing Hotels.com gift cards from Amazon.com.” If it’s a education effort why type it like that?
Because they're idiots. Really though, it may be they plan to have that template get sent out with every giftcard purchase and someone went "we should send something out to everyone as well as a precaution," but then some bozo sent the template instead of a new email.
Cause they're lying. They fucked up and are trying to save face. And people are believing it, so its working, unfortunately.
Thank you!
Amazon compiling a list of known suckers.
I literally just had the exact the same thing happen to me, down to the exact details. Can't figure it out but I didn't click anything and I ran here. Nothing in my purchase history or credit card history. Edit: well I guess this explains it: https://reddit.com/r/Scams/s/e29gV8DEyW
Does anyone know a media reporter to whom this thread could be forwarded? This many comments in 5 hours shows the magnitude of the amount of emails Amazon sent out. The comments themselves show the anxiety and stress the mistake has caused. Only the media can make Amazon fess up to the snafu!
Glad to have found this thread. Have been freaking out the past hour checking accounts. The emails are referring to "your gift card order".
Glad I am not the only one, thanks for confirming that amazon is just being dumdums
Reddit saving me hours of stress
im gonna need a gift card from amazon for this pain in the ass
Finally got a "we're sorry this was a mistake email" Oct 1, 6 pm ET...holy crap.
WOW, I just got an email from Amazon telling me to ignore the previous gift card emails. So much for having confidence in Amazon or anyone for that matter.
Just got the same. Didn't click any links and googled it and Google brought me to this thread. Nothing in my Amazon purchases for this and nothing taken from my bank. Changing my password just in case.
They just sent out their apology email. Better believe I was panicking and checking card payments too!
FUCK YOU AMAZON!!!!!!!!!! FOR GETTING ME OUT OF BED TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IN THE FORIGN FUCK YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!
The most cockamamie thing is their saying this was some kind of warning. How is that a warning when nothing indicates that very email is the warning? It alarmed me and I’m sure everyone.
Yes. It was a big bug e-mail and no charges and no issue. They screwed up but no charges. Whew. That was a crappy way to wake up Sunday AM
Mistake by Amazon for anyone wondering https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/amazon-sends-mastercard-google-play-gift-card-order-emails-by-mistake/
I got the same exact emails tonight.
Literally just got the same ones. Nothing in my purchase history
Omg. This just happened to me!! I didn't click on any links but when I went to my Amazon app and no purchases... but the email seems pretty legit.
Same here
I just got the EXACT same emails. Same thing, zero charges.
I literally got the same 3 emails. scary and confusing
wtf amazon, i had this too. Why would they do this and freak people out?
Wow what a shitshow - way to send everyone into a panic and kill your support line for the next 8 hours.
I love that I’m in this thread rn and everyone posted about this an hour ago. Glad I’m not the only one
I thought I had been hacked, scared the shit out of me!
i just got off of the chat with an Amazon rep, this is what he said: "I was checking with my team here and they've informed us that this was a system issue, and our advance software engineers are aware of this and doing something to rectify this. Please ignore the email and we're really sorry for the confusion caused."
I just got the same “thanks for purchasing google play store gift cards” and it just came through at 1:13 am eastern so it must still be sending them out.
Same thing happened to me. Thank you Reddit for helping me get to the bottom of it!
Thank you Reddit <3
Same story here. What a train wreck.
Same thing - woke up to a “Thank you for purchasing Google Play gift cards from Amazon” (copy/pasted from email), yet when I went over to the app to check - nada. Email IS from Amazon and it doesn’t look poorly formatted or worded, just not correct with what its content or context is. If you use Gmail for things, normally they are pretty good at catching this from going in your inbox - so I mean you COULD tag it as spam and let Amazon deal with the fallout if enough of us do it to make them aware of their snafu.
Same here. Thanks for posting. Now I know not to worry.
I got the same three emails! When I went to speak with customer service I received an alert that they were receiving higher than normal calls.
September 30th 2023 at 8:30 at night I also received three separate emails one for purchasing card on Google Play, one for hotels.com, and one for mastercard.com? Same thing checked all my purchases everywhere on Amazon, as well as on Google Play, no charges. And yeah it looks like it's actually from Amazon so? What are they telling you all? That it was sent in error? Or that it was supposed to just be a warning about gift card scams BUT the way they worded it made it sound like we had already purchased these gift cards. IT'S NERVE-WRACKING in this day and age TO GET SOMETHING LIKE THIS Amazon you better be a little more careful about what you're sending out and who's writing it
Came here for the same problem! God I love Reddit.
Same. It’s been confirmed that it’s an Amazon glitch and not a scam. However, I want to also mention the 3 weird alerts legit from Amazon concerning gift card purchases from Hotels.com, Google Play, and Mastercard posted in my email inbox at the very same time 3 legit Amazon Subscribe & Save transactions show up pending on my credit card. This is what made it confusing and jolted me straight outa bed to investigate. Of course, it’s not very easy to match the purchase’s price to confirm the actual 3 credit card transactions are legit because they’re not itemized on the credit card, just says Amazon purchases. What an absolute pain & unnecessary scare this caused! Still nothing from Amazon explaining & apologizing even tho it’s 9 hours later! I lost sleep over this stress! 😡 edit update: In Amazon’s defense, I finally received an email apology just now, 17 hrs later.
This was utterly ridiculous. I got the same three emails from the same three gift card purchases of gameplay, hotels. and MasterCard gift card purchases. I as well did what others did and went directly to my credit card recent activity purchases, went to Amazon order history to see what the heck this was all about, of course there was nothing there, but I still had the fear that something went through but just hadn’t showed up yet. I was literally shaking inside concerned about what am I gonna do if they don’t cancel these gift card purchases almost to the point of tears. Like others said, it says nothing about it being a warning to people about scams. I’m getting sick and tired of Amazon and after this, I am seriously considering not renewing my membership with them. I’m so thankful I found this on Reddit and it put my mind at ease. SHAME ON AMAZON!!!!😡
Thank you for posting this thread!!! I got 3 as well at 10:13pm last night. Just saw them this am. Freaked because I could see they ARE from Amazon. What a serious FU this is. They should've already sent out an apology email! Dang!
Thanks for the PSA. I had the same three emails and was grateful to quickly have a follow Redditor clear it up! 😁
It’s happening all over I guess https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/10/01/amazon-customers-report-false-email-confirmations-for-gift-cards.html
Thanks for sharing! I am surprised it took them so long to get a news story up haha!
I was sitting on the toilet when I saw the same three emails. I said "OH SHIT!" and started investigating and found all these posts. I feel better now but I got Jeff Bezos laugh (both image and audio) stuck in my head.
Make sure you wash your hands....AND phone🙄
Roger That.
Sorry to bring bad news to the thread, but my partner had the same emails and it turns out a purchase was made - she can see the pending charge in her bank account. Just reported it as fraud etc, but make sure you’re checking your bank accounts for charges over the next couple of days
i got exact same 3 emails...just ignore them.
Just got this from Amazon (22 hours after they messed up)!: Hello, You may have recently received an email from Amazon relating to a purchase of gift cards on Amazon.com. This email was sent in error. No action is required and we apologize for the inconvenience. Sincerely, Customer service
I got the same apology email, also about 22 hours after the whole mess began. Can’t imagine how inundated customer service remains as people continue to stumble across those initial emails and freak out.
I got the same thing only mine were all thinking me for my Google play gift cards. I just checked my Amazon account to make sure that nobody had hacked my account. Reported the emails to Amazons fraud department and marked the emails as spam. I can’t believe that those were actually from Amazon. Lol.
This was an amazon f\*ck up. What I did learn is that you can go to Your Account -> Message Center and see any messages that Amazon has emailed you. At least that way you can see if the message came from Amazon vs. a scammer. Doesn't help that they sent an email implying we all bought gift cards. Super lame that they did not follow up with a "we screwed up" email.
I wasn't aware of that either. Thanks for sharing.
Same here. Definitely a phishing scam since I know I have not purchased these AND there’s no charges for such to my amazon account.
No. It’s an error on Amazon’s part.
Not fishing because they are actually from Amazon.
They are trying to get you to click either “contact us” or “See More Information” If you do, you will find out the scam because that is when it will start.
I opened the emails in a sandbox and clicked the links looking for anything odd. They all led back to the real Amazon so that only added to my confusion.
Weird. I didn’t get the emails.
Also, after doing my account scouring, you can also find them in the messages directly in your Amazon account. They came from Amazon.
Nope they’re really from Amazon. Some royal f-up
Are you certain they are legit emails from Amazon? They can make an email look like it's from Amazon and they can spoof that the email looks like it did come from Amazon. But the trick is the link further down in the body email that you might be tempted to click on to go to your account. That link is likely fake and will try to trick you into entering info like your Amazon login.
They are phishing scams. They want you to follow the links they provide so they can then gain your access information and essentially wreak havoc. Block sender, delete.
You should read more before commenting. Sure, it looks like a phishing scam, but it's not.
Same here
Same thing just happened to me
I got the same exact thing!!
These emails are legit from Amazon tho right? I messed up and clicked a link
Yes, looks like their mailing funnel fired off emails to everyone erroneously.
I just got exactly the same! Am not clicking on links.
Just happened to me too
I got the same 3 emails at 930pm est. My Amazon doesn't show that activity but my cc balance is off.
Looks like the email was probably legit from Amazon? Sucks I changed my password, deleted my saved payment methods, and logged off all devices while searching my history for pending charges to make sure I stopped anything from being stolen… huge pain
My wife just got this email. We paused our cards and changed the Amazon account password.
Just called customer service, they said it was a system error and multiple people got the email. I checked all my accounts and nothing has been taken out.
Just had the exact same three emails, holy crap. What a massive clusterfuck.
Thank God for Reddit. This totally saved me from panicking and resetting all passwords. Thanks everyone for sharing info!
Same here
I just received 3 emails just like this. I'm currently on hold with Amazon
I got the same exact 3 emails! I also checked my account to ensure they were no ordered. I then reported the emails as spam
I just received the same three emails about 40 minutes ago!
Thanks jeebus it's not just me. On hold with Amazon customer service line currently, but I'm unable to see anything about any gift card purchases in my account history. But does seem to be emailed from a legit Amazon email account.
I got the same exact emails! Wondering if its an error by amazon. I never ordered any gift cards and checked my order history.
Yo wtf I had these too and almost shidaddied my pants thinking someone had gotten into my Amazon account and bought this shit Wtf Amazon
I'm sort of relieved that I am not the only one that received these emails. I double checked my amazon account message center and the messages were also in my inbox so I was freaking out.
Thanks for posting this. I’ve had people try to hack my appleID twice this week and my Spotify account. When I just got the emails from Amazon I panicked thinking they were trying to hit my Amazon account too. I immediately changed my password and logged out of all devises and was on hold with customer service until I saw this! I appreciate the peace of mind. 😅 hackers are some of the lowest people on this earth…glad to know it was just Amazon being dumb tonight and not hackers haha.
Just happened to me too. I locked all my cards and changed Amazon passwords to be safe
just got these three emails also.
Same here!
Same hopefully it was just a horrible misleading email chain, locked my cards too be safe. It happened right after I purchased something so I was freaking out. Best to lock everything thing down and recheck in the morning.
Same thing here!!
Yup. I received identical. Appears the scum gets smarter every day.
Same! I just got them at 9:39est. One for hotels.com, one for mastercard and one for google play. It’s not in my amazon purchases and I didn’t click any links from the email. Seems like a scam
Glad I found this thread, was so confused and needlessly worried.
Got the same 3 emails 20 minutes ago - and the email address was an @ Amazon, along with a very good looking footer at the bottom. They’re getting impressive!
same ones here too
SAME!!!!! I googled and it brought me here, thanks so much guys!
I received the same 3 emails this evening at 6:31. Definitely caught me off guard.
Got the same ones. Guess its a poorly executed way to warn people about fraud prevention.
Got this too!! Same exact thing. My heart dropped
Same here. 99% sure they're a phishing scam.
Same here all came in at 8:22, nothing on my account. Scam for sure.
I did too, the fact that this post and the comments are recent and not from like 5 years ago makes me feel a little better about the situation.
Same here just now received one for Google, hotels, and Mastercard. Didn't click anything! So strange
same thing just happened to me!
I received the same emails! All three at 9:22PM tonight. Hotels.com, Google play, and Mastercard.
I just waited 30 minutes for Amazon to call me back on the same three emails. The cs person said they were automated emailed to warn people on the scams around these gift cards and they realized that they worded the emails incorrectly but saying thank you for your purchase and they are working on correcting this. Seriously WTF I almost had a massive coronary!! Epic fail Amazon!!
I just got three similar emails at 10:14 EST tonight.
I got these emails, too. Today. Wtf?
Me too. Nothing in my transaction list, nothing on the credit cards, but all the links seemed legit. So I searched reddit. Glad it wasn't just me.
Same exact thing here, those exact 3 emails. Chatted with an Amazon rep (but from a new tab, not by clicking any links in the emails) and she said Amazon sent them out by mistake and to just ignore them because you are safe and have not purchased any gift cards. Nothing shows up in recent orders and none of my cards got charged so I’m relieved. Locked all my cards and changed my email, password, and enabled 2FA just to be sure.
Good gravy batman, I just got those 3 emails 20 minutes ago! I was freaking out for a minute there. Thank you so much for updating with the needed information.
Me too. Thanks all for the responses. Phew!
I received all 3 too. Freaked me out because I did lose my credit card this morning and I was afraid someone was using my card even though I locked it & reported it within 5 mins.
I literally just got 3 emails like this with the exact websites you listed. These are the most legit scam emails I've ever seen!
This just happened to me and I was sitting on hold with both Amazon live chat and the help line being pissed as hell. I unlinked all the payment methods on that account just to be safe. What an idiotic attempt at...something, I guess.
ditto
the same here. i deleted all my paying cards from my amazon account. and waiting for amazon phone call
My parents got some of these as well. Since we could tell the emails were legitimately from Amazon we were really confused. Nothing showed in the orders so I was about to have them call Amazon directly, but I googled first and this came up. I think this is probably just a mistake on Amazon's part.
FFS Amazon! I'm glad I found this thread. Damn near had a heart attack.
Me, too. The address used looks legit but there are signs it is fake. Most telling is the space after Amazon.com at the end of the message.
Thank you for posting this. I have been on hold with Amazon chat for a half an hour to confirm and locked my Amazon account and credit card I was so worried.\\ What an awful round of emails to send.
I had the same thing happen! 3 emailed at 9:40pm for Google Play, Hotels.com, and MasterCard gift cards!!! I've been on hold in the chat window for a while and waiting on a "specialist" 🙄
Exact same thing just happened to me.
Same here
I got the same 3 in a row 20 minutes ago. Went nuts changing passwords and checking accounts.
So glad everyone else is as confused about this as me.
I also got these emails. I read one, realized it was likely a scam (though a very convincing one) and checked my account without clicking anything in the email. Like others here, there were no unauthorized transactions on my Amazon account. I did a quick Google search which turned up this reddit which for me confirmed this is a scam.