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Businesses Privacy Security The Almighty Buck

Amazon's Third-Party Sellers Hit By Hackers (foxbusiness.com) 37

Posted by msmash from the security-woes dept.
Hackers are targeting the growing population of third-party sellers on Amazon.com using stolen credentials to post fake deals and steal cash. From a report: In recent weeks, attackers have changed the bank-deposit information on Amazon accounts of active sellers to steal tens of thousands of dollars from each (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source), according to several sellers and advisers. Attackers also have hacked into the Amazon accounts of sellers who haven't used them recently to post nonexistent merchandise for sale at steep discounts in an attempt to pocket the cash, those people say. The fraud stems largely from email and password credentials stolen from previously hacked accounts and then sold on what's dubbed the "dark web," a network of anonymous internet servers where hackers communicate and trade illicit information. Such hacks previously have favored sites such as PayPal and eBay, but Amazon recently has become a target of choice, according to cybersecurity experts.
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Amazon's Third-Party Sellers Hit By Hackers

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  • I never go with that sort of 3rd party vendor. Not eligible for Prime shipping, not worth the risk in general. Not worth it on the off chance I'll save a buck or two to have it take far longer than I want, and perhaps not show up at all.

    • Re:Yet another reason... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Monday April 10, 2017 @02:56PM (#54209459)

      I'll almost always go with Amazon if the item is available from them. However, being from Canada, I find that quite often going through third party Amazon sellers and eBay is really the only way of finding quite a few products online. Americans don't realize how much better their e-commerce selection is than what we get in Canada.

    • Meh... No need to restrict yourself only to Prime, just avoid deals that seem too good to be true. I buy from 3rd-party sellers all the time and I've only had one issue in the past 18 years, for which Amazon quickly facilitated a resolution (I kept the falsely advertised product and Amazon forced a full refund).

      The next closest thing I've had to an actual problem was with a power cable I ordered, wherein someone else had ordered what the 3rd-party seller had left in stock at the same time I ordered my si

      • and gave me the option of cancelling the order or waiting until they got more in stock

        They may have known they weren't getting any more, but wanted to try to get you to cancel the order instead of having to do it themselves, since then it doesn't have a negative impact on their account status.

        I've seen it a few times - sellers asking customers to cancel the orders that the seller can't fulfil.

        • They explicitly offered to (and suggested I let them) cancel the order, actually. The order only remained open because I still needed the cable at that time, but my need was not urgent. The second time around, I actually no longer needed the cable (I replaced the equipment it was for as it ended up failing for an unrelated reason) but was planning to keep the order so I'd have a spare for another piece of equipment which uses the same cable. Since I no longer have a specific need for the cable, I allowed th

          • But, and I can't stress this enough, Amazon was also quick to fix the issue. They always are, which is why I really don't care if they fuck up once in a while, or if a 3rd-party seller does try to scam me.

            The problem with this is that Amazon keeps a tally of everything they do for you. Even if they're correcting their own error, it counts against you.
            Once you hit a magical threshold, they black hole your account.

            • You think every other retailer out there doesn't do the same thing? Here's a hint: you only get so many returns at a given retailer; there are even a number of return tracking networks, comprised of multiple retailers, with many retailers belonging to multiple such networks. At least, that's how it was when I got out of retail nearly a decade ago; I can only imagine it's gotten worse since then.

              It's actually tracked as rate of returns, e.g. X returns in Y time, and no, Amazon is nowhere near strict enough

              • Yes, they all do it. But Best Buy can't track what I pay for in cash. Amazon by its nature knows my account, address, etc., and is much more hostile when it decides to nuke a user. You've simply never seen it happen. I've known people who have had accounts nuked to the point that other accounts shipping to the same address taken out as well.

                And with Best Buy or any other retailer, you can go to a physical store and demand answers. With Amazon, all you can do is call the help line and listen to a guy in

                • I can't say I've ever gotten Indian support from Amazon, nor have I ever had them ignore an email; and yes, I've taken them to task over my affiliate account in the past. No, they don't ignore valid support complaints. Nice hyperbole, though.

        • I've seen it a few times - sellers asking customers to cancel the orders that the seller can't fulfil.

          I had a situation where a third-party seller had granola bars for sale at a very good price. Only to find out that they kept five bucks of the sale and placed an order with Walmart. Since then I've ordered directly from Walmart and saved five bucks.

          • Only to find out that they kept five bucks of the sale and placed an order with Walmart.

            Did they have Walmart ship it to you direct with their branding intact? (And probably treated by them as no more than an order with a different billing and delivery address- the former being the supplier's, and the latter yours, I'm guessing).

            If so, that might sound stupid- but then I'm guessing their business plan was only ever intended to be quick-n'-dirty and short term, and took into account people doing what you did over the additional hassle of trying to get the goods shipped anonymously.

            • Did they have Walmart ship it to you direct with their branding intact?

              Direct from Walmart with a Walmart return address on it.

              If so, that might sound stupid- but then I'm guessing their business plan was only ever intended to be quick-n'-dirty and short term, and took into account people doing what you did over the additional hassle of trying to get the goods shipped anonymously.

              Not necessarily. More elaborate operations may have 10,000+ items for sale, but no inventory is ever carried and each item is drop ship from the manufacturer.

    • I never go with that sort of 3rd party vendor. Not eligible for Prime shipping, not worth the risk in general. Not worth it on the off chance I'll save a buck or two to have it take far longer than I want, and perhaps not show up at all.

      What "sort" of third-party vendor would it be that you avoid? Non-Amazon sellers can and do sell with Prime shipping via the Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) program. This is an option any seller has for each item/listing (not necessarily something they will do for all their items). The amount of protection you as a buyer receive is more or less the same under Amazon's policies. If all you're looking for is Prime, you've undoubtedly ordered from third-party sellers a lot without realizing it.

  • I accidentally ordered something 3rd party. They shipped it to a different state and I filed an A-Z claim after I saw to my horror, about a dozen people reporting the same thing. I got my money back, but it took Amazon over a month to shut down the account after I had my claim resolved. Meanwhile, reviews were popping up several times a day claiming to be scammed by the seller. I joked about becoming a scam seller so I could get free money from anyone not filing a claim. But yea, over a month of daily orde

  • Experienced customers can spot most of the scams easily. A small trader who has good feedback for selling a couple of lawn chairs a week suddenly has a vast portfolio of 4k TVs, top of the range dSLRs and high-end laptops, all at half price. A naive customer doesn't look beyond the overall feedback score, or see anything odd in the line in the description that asks them to contact the seller before purchasing, or in the official looking email they get back that links to an 'Amazon' purchase page that helpfu

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      My guess is they have some model that says being "proactive" reduces scams by $x but has a side effect of reduced $y legitimate sales, too, along with the risk of some big negative publicity when a legitimate seller has his account cancelled or something.

      I don't know, but I suspect a major growth sector for Amazon is basically competing with the flea market over at Ebay and not creating a bunch of ill will against that type of seller means something to them.

      IMHO, Amazon should have fewer flea market sellers

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by RDW ( 41497 )

        My guess is they have some model that says being "proactive" reduces scams by $x but has a side effect of reduced $y legitimate sales, too, along with the risk of some big negative publicity when a legitimate seller has his account cancelled or something.

        Depressingly that may be true. Perhaps there's no simple way of reporting an obviously hacked account, because that would be admitting they exist, which could put off purchasers. But I think Amazon should be putting more resources into this behind the scenes. I've reported very blatant hijacked scam accounts in the past, and although they've eventually been blocked, the response has been downright sluggish. Surely an invitation to contact the 'seller' outside Amazon is a direct violation of their terms and

  • I pretty much used to use 3rd party vendors on Amazon and other sites. Thanks for the warning.

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