Police warn of bogus ‘Amazon Prime’ refund scam

Police have issued a warning about an email scam

The scammers make contact by email and claim the recipient is due a refund but after a series of transactions the victim can end up losing thousands of pounds.

Lincolnshire Police said that at least one victim had lost money and in a statement today (Sunday, May 24) said: “We are warning people to be on the alert for e-mails claiming to be from Amazon Prime saying that the recipient is due a £39.99 refund for cancelling their membership.

“It then invites a phone call, ostensibly to Amazon, to talk through a process for cancelling the membership and being reimbursed the money through HSBC bank.

“A further e-mail says that £3,999 (rather than the £39.99) has been mistakenly transferred to the recipient’s HSBC account and the money must be reimbursed. This results in the victim transferring the large sum of money back to ‘Amazon’ and losing it because it goes to a bogus HSBC account.

“We are dealing with one such case at the moment but wish to put people on warning about the nature of this scam and not to be taken in by it.”