News hardware 25 young people arrested for defrauding Amazon of half a million euros: their crazy technique
Published on 07/25/2022 at 19:05
25 young Spaniards were convinced they had found a flaw in Amazon’s system. They just got caught, but the crooks still managed to make regarding half a million euros off the back of the American giant. We tell you all regarding it.
Amazon: a particularly permissive e-commerce giant
If Amazon is THE big leader in online sales here, it’s not only thanks to the prices displayed and the diversity of the products sold. If Amazon reigns supreme, it is thanks to its quality of service.
This paper is absolutely not sponsored and its objective is not to advertise for the American giant that we can very well criticize elsewhere, but We have to admit that Amazon is an extremely practical site.
- the site and the application are very ergonomic
- deliveries are fast and generally reliable
- fairly attractive prices, especially for video games and tech
- the following-sales service is responsive and efficient
- the Prime subscription is frankly advantageous
- finally, and this is what interests us todayAmazon is very accommodating in its returns and refunds policy.
An order on Amazon can be returned for 30 days and, as long as they don’t abuse, the company almost always takes its customers at their word. A little story happened to me that illustrates this point well.
I had ordered a helmet which was displayed as “delivered” on the site, but my mailbox was empty. I notified the following-sales service, and, without making a fuss, Amazon sent me a new helmet directly. The next day… I received two. The one that was sent back to me by express and the one that was 1 day late.
My personal anecdote is fairly innocuous, and, even if I was very happy at the time and thought I was Bernard Madoff, in the end, it was only a 60-bullet helmet. Our 25 thieves more or less used the same strategy… but in full awareness and on a very large scale.
Inevitably, the police ended up falling on them.
Half a million euros stolen from Amazon: this is the method used by the scammers
On paper, the diabolical strategy of our young crooks seemed foolproof.
- First, they created tons of Amazon accounts, with a nice variety of payment methods and scheduled deliveries to as many pick-up points as possible. Here, they had created 500 customer accounts and 400 virtual credit cards.
- Then they took controlr high-end tech products, like iPhones or large gaming PCs for example.
- And finally, they abused Amazon’s flexibility by stating that the product never arrived while it was in their hands.
- Better yet, and this has been the primary method used here, young people have often started a return process claiming that the product is defective. They prepared a small box with a return slip…completely empty.
It’s all good: they were entitled to a quick refund from Amazon + at the monetary value of an expensive and new product that will resell easily.
This immense abuse has enabled our merry band to reap more than 500,000 euros. With such a scale, the scam has obviously been spotted. The security service of Amazon collaborated with the police and 25 Spaniards between 20 and 35 years old were apprehended.
By searching 4 houses in Coslada, San Fernando and Hortaleza, all the evidence was found.
Of course, don’t do this at home.
