Got this email: Review of your Amazon Payments Account

Bobo08

Dagobah Resident
FOTCM Member
I just got the following email:

Hello,

To comply with applicable laws related to commercial transactions, we are conducting a review of your account. During the review, you will be unable to access your account.

Within 14 days, please send the following information for [my name] to our secure fax line at 1-206-922-5821:

- Complete residential address
- A copy of unexpired passport or other government issued identification (for example, driver’s license)
- Proof of address, such as your last utility bill (if the address on your passport or government issued identification is not current)
- The e-mail address that is registered to your Amazon account
- Reference ID 330901401

We will send an e-mail within 24 hours confirming receipt. We will convert your fax to a secure electronic image.

If we do not receive this information within 14 days, your account may be closed.

Regards,

Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com

**IMPORTANT**
This is an auto-reply mail and replies to the same will not be processed. The taskID for this investigation is 330901401. Please attach the taskID in the response action for further processing of the investigation.

At first, I thought it was a phishing attempt so I looked in the email header, it appeared to be really from Amazon. Then I looked around on the Internet. It turned out that quite a number of people had received it. Most of them are sellers on Amazon, but some are not. I myself have never sold anything on Amazon. I only opened a AWS account years ago and haven't used it for a long time. One of the typical cases I found about it is here: _http://www.hacker-dad.com/why-im-ditching-amazon/

So my questions are:

* Has anyone else got a similar email?
* Should I just ignore it?

Regarding the second question, I only have 3 - 4 Kindle books in my account and have hard copies for them anyway so I don't mind losing them. But I wrote a bunch of reviews, which may be lost if they close my account and that would be a pity. BTW, they said that my account would be inaccessible but it doesn't appear to be the case.
 
I got something similiar from Amazon some time ago and refused to send this info to Amazon. Since then my seller account is blocked. The buyer account still works. Don't reply directly to the email since it's stilly can be a fishing attempt. Just login to your Amazon account and check whether you have any notifications from Amazon. As far as I know it concerns only seller accounts.
 
I think this request would only relate to the AWS account you signed up for years ago, and would not affect your Amazon buyer account. So I think you could ignore it and it would not affect your Amazon buyer/customer account, your reviews, kindle library or ability to buy stuff on Amazon.

If you sign in to your Amazon buyer account and don't see any alerts or messages, I think this would be a sign that that account is not affected.

I sell on Amazon.com and received months ago a similar request for scanned copies of passport, utility bill etc.

I wasn't requested specifically to fax the information though, instead I was able to see the same requests when I signed in to sellercentral.amazon.com, and upload the documents via a form on the Amazon Seller webpage.
 
Its a phishing attempt. I don't receive it from Amazon, but i`m receiving it from Google. The context is similar.
Few years ago on my work place, in the company that i work ,receive the official letter in a elegant envelope on a fancy paper that our company is awarded for something.I gave the letter to the owner and he wanted to call the number and ask what info they needed . I alerted him that that is a big hoax . He cant believe that its possible because it was an physical letter on paper , not some junk mail. After a little research i found that it was also a phishing attempt.

So if your account is working fine don't give any attention to those phishing attempts.

Take care.
 
Altair said:
I got something similiar from Amazon some time ago and refused to send this info to Amazon. Since then my seller account is blocked. The buyer account still works. Don't reply directly to the email since it's stilly can be a fishing attempt. Just login to your Amazon account and check whether you have any notifications from Amazon. As far as I know it concerns only seller accounts.

Yeah, if it's not on your Amazon account, then it's a fake.

We received something very similar for Pilule Rouge (actually asking for even more information about each partner and the company), and it WAS legitimate. But we have a seller's account. We complied, and they kept our account open. They are having more and more restrictions. But for a simple buyer account, this is over the top, I think.
 
I agree, just check you account for any notices, if there is none, then you don't have to do anything. I myself am a amazon seller for Europe and they have sent me an email saying I have to open a bank account only for the purpose of receiving amazon payments. A new requirement for all sellers (at least in Europe) It was legitimate, it was an official notice in my Amazon account panel.
 
Yeah, they are certainly making things difficult for sellers. We recently had to deal with a big rigamarole regarding sales of DVD's. I guess they're tightening up on sales of pirated/unlicensed movies or something, but they certainly required a whole bunch of documents and proof of purchase docs that almost led to the suspension of sales of those products. I think we got some bank account notification as well, but we ignored it as that information was already a part of the seller account. Probably a blanket message to all sellers regardless of current compliance. As for buyer's accounts, I wouldn't give them anything other than what has always been needed.
 
I would ignore it. If I thought it might be remotely real, I'd also close my Amazon Payments account and close bank accounts or credit cards (or report stolen and get new credit card numbers) attached to the Amazon Payments account, and probably close the entire Amazon account too. Maybe that's overboard, but then again there's so much identity theft and data breaches occurring.
 
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