Watch Out for Phishing Scams on Google

Updated: Jun 12, 2024

You may have noticed your bank sending emails and/or way more warnings on their website regarding fraud with wire transfers or just more news around money fraud scams.

The more we become technologically advanced as a society, the more we need to become more technologically savvy in order to prevent being susceptible to becoming victims of fraud. Someone close to me was recently a victim of fraud. Of course, it's not their fault for being trusting, but it is their fault for not understanding the technology they were using when they became a victim. The information is so readily available to ensure you’re keeping up with evolving technologies. Some definitely are stubborn about being more tech-savvy, but it’s evolving even more quickly now whether we like it or not.

I'm going to explain the exact fraud scheme that impacted my loved one:

Type “amazon.com/mytv” into your computer or phone’s browser to enter the unique code
Use a camera app or QR code reader to go directly to amazon.com/mytv to enter the unique code.

Choosing option #1 is risky if you don’t type it in perfectly and that is likely what a lot of users do by accident.

If you type in “amazon.com my tv” with a space, your browser sends you to a search engine by default. The default search engine is likely Google on most people’s browsers, especially if you use the Chrome browser.

If you aren’t fully aware, tech-savvy and/or completely paying attention, you could accidentally click on a link on a search engine that is a fake/phishing site created specifically for this fraud scheme.

The fraudsters create a site that looks almost exactly like the streaming service. In this case, you can see the example where they tried to look exactly like Amazon’s branding and color scheme.

Once a user enters the code into the fake/phishing/phishing site:

The fraudster now has access to their Amazon Prime account details.
The user is taken to a page that urges them to call a number ASAP to help verify their account
When the user calls the number, the customer service agent pretends to be Amazon, concerned about fraud they’ve detected with the user’s account. Since they have access to your Amazon Prime account, everything they say sounds legit. They read off real account numbers that sound familiar to the user.
They convince the user they are going to try to help them stop the fraud on their end and all they need to do is call their bank to tell them to let Amazon handle it.

This is key to the frauders’ success: they need the victim not to report the fraud to the actual bank after a certain amount of time. They know transactions take a while to go through, so they encourage the user to wait and not report the fraud to their bank.

Lessons learned and/or what to look out for to be careful with this particular scheme:

Always be aware of the website URL you’re on, especially when entering codes or other private information. In the screenshot above, you will see in the browser toolbar that the URL is not one that is associated with or owned by Amazon.
If you’re on a search engine, pay close attention to the display URLs that are shown before you click.
Always report fraud! For sure, it can be embarrassing to admit you fell for a fraud scheme, but reporting it increases the chances of you getting your money back as well as helps others who may also become victims.