If you received three bizarre emails from Amazon this weekend claiming you bought a gift card, don't worry: It was all a mistake on Amazon's end.
Customers took to social media recently to ask about confusing Amazon emails, saying that the emails were thanking them for recent purchases of gift cards for third parties including Google Play, Mastercard, and Hotels.com. The problem? None of the customers had actually purchased them.
Amazon has since confirmed that the issue is on their end, and was an “error” in their system. So, if you received these particular emails, you do not need to do anything in response.
What the False Emails Look Like
Some customers received the emails on Saturday evening and some on Sunday morning.
The emails appear to have arrived consecutively, but all three of them were about different gift cards: Multiple people on social media mentioned Google Play, Mastercard, and Hotels.com specifically.
One of the Amazon emails, via CNBC.
An Amazon spokesperson cleared up the misunderstanding in an email statement to CNBC. According to Amazon, it was due to a systems error:
“An error in our system resulted in an order confirmation email being sent to customers who did not purchase a gift card. We are emailing these customers to inform them of the error and apologize for the inconvenience.”
What Should I Do if I Received These Emails?
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Some customers said they had checked their order history as well as their pending credit card charges, finding nothing. Others reported calling the Amazon reps, who may have been working overtime this weekend fielding calls from many others who received the same false emails.
In the end, however, Amazon has confirmed that no action is needed to handle this snafu. The emails were a mistake, and you'll be able to safely ignore them entirely.
Ironically, the emails themselves contained warnings of scammers. Needless to say, if you receive any similar emails in the future, they might well be scams: Amazon emails are a favorite way to phish for personal information for many online scammers, given the widespread popularity of the ecommerce giant.
Amazon Scams to Watch Out For
We've covered the wide variety of Amazon-related scams to keep an eye out for in the past. These scams can vary from fake reviews designed to bump a shoddy product to the top of Amazon's search results, as well as texts or emails that claim to be from Amazon, but are really just scammers hoping to get your login details.
Here are a few details to look for when receiving an SMS message claiming to be from Amazon. If you spot these inconsistencies, you're likely dealing with a scam:
- Grammar or spelling mistakes
- A regular ten-digit phone number (real Amazon texts will likely come from a four-to-seven digit source code)
- Includes any link without an “Amazon.com” domain
Now that Amazon has incorrectly sent out a few emails claiming customer bought gift cards when they didn't, we'll have to add one more thing to keep an eye out for while trying to avoid being scammed: Amazon itself.
