Amazon Gift Cards Purchase Confirmation Alarmed Customers, Raised Hacking Concerns

Amazon reportedly sent out email confirmations for the purchases of its gift cards on Saturday and Sunday. However, there is a problem with this scenario as it turned out that customers did not buy them.

Customers became suspicious of the email and assumed it could be a scam. They were further alarmed by the incident as they also thought Amazon’s system may have been hacked, exposing their personal and financial information.

Amazon Deluged With Inquiries Over the Gift Cards

As customers who received the supposed confirmation email from Amazon were concerned, they immediately reached out to Amazon’s customer service representatives. The reps have been handling numerous inquiries, and some customers also posted their experiences on social media.

According to CNBC, some said they received three consecutive emails that were sent on Saturday night and the others the next morning. The emails from Amazon thanked the customers for their purchases of Mastercard, Google Play, and Hotels.com gift cards, which they did not actually buy.

Why the Gift Card Confirmation Emails Were Sent Out

CNBC was able to contact Amazon, and its spokesperson said the emails were not meant to be delivered to customers at all. He also assured customers that this was not a scam or a hacking case but a mere system error.

“An error in our system resulted in an order confirmation email being sent to customers who did not purchase a gift card,” the Amazon spokesperson said in an email to the publication. “We are emailing these customers to inform them of the error and apologize for the inconvenience.”

Business Insider reported that Amazon also sent new emails to customers, telling them that they do not have to do anything and just disregard the message since it was a system error. The company also included a warning so gift card scams will not victimize them in the future.

“There are a variety of scams in which fraudsters try to trick others into paying with gift cards from well-known brands,” part of the email reads.

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