Amazon Stole My Account
Don't let this happen to you
They locked me out of my account and I never got it back
I can't access my Prime Videos, Kindle Books, or my sites on AWS
What happened?
I have been an Amazon customer for over ten years. I have spent thousands of dollars and thousands of euros on Amazon.com and Amazon.fr.
I have had an Amazon credit card for over ten years.
I use two factor authentication. I have had a Prime subscription for years.
After making a purchase on Amazon.fr (where I frequently shop), I got an email saying that my order had been cancelled, my account locked temporarily, and after 2 hours I would need to log in and re-enter my billing information.
Cher client,
Une partie non autorisée a peut-être eu accès à votre compte. Pour protéger vos informations, nous avons :
- désactivé le mot de passe d’accès à votre compte ;
- annulé toute modification apportée par cette partie ;
- annulé toutes les commandes en attente. Vous pouvez ignorer tous les e-mails de confirmation que vous avez reçus pour ces commandes.
- le cas échéant, remboursé les achats à votre instrument de paiement.
Veuillez prévoir 2 heures pour que ces actions prennent effet.
Après 2 heures, vous pourrez réinitialiser votre mot de passe et récupérer l’accès à votre compte. Sur la page de connexion, sélectionnez « Vous avez oublié votre mot de passe ? » et suivez les instructions. Si vous n’avez pas de numéro de téléphone associé à votre compte, nous vous recommandons de l’ajouter en cliquant sur « Paramètres du compte » sur notre page d’aide :
http://www.amazon.fr/aide
Entre-temps, nous vous recommandons également de modifier le mot de passe de votre fournisseur de messagerie et les mots de passe pour d’autres sites Web afin d’éviter que votre compte soit à nouveau compromis.
Une fois que vous aurez à nouveau accès à votre compte, vous devrez peut-être :
- saisir à nouveau vos informations de méthode de paiement complètes lors de votre prochaine commande ;
- saisir à nouveau les adresses que vous avez récemment ajoutées à votre compte ;
- vérifier vos abonnements, si vous en avez. Il est possible que vous deviez les mettre à jour.
Pour en savoir plus sur la façon dont cela a pu se produire et sur ce que vous pouvez faire pour sécuriser votre compte, rendez-vous sur notre page « Sécurité et confidentialité » :
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_gt_w_o_sp?nodeId=201908990
En cas de problème pour accéder à votre compte, appelez le Service Client au numéro suivant :
Clients résidant en France : 08 00 90 84 67
Clients internationaux : +33 1 74 18 10 38
Cordialement,
Le spécialiste du compte
Amazon.fr
https://www.amazon.fr
After 2 hours, I tried logging into my account, but I got the following message:
Ok, so I called Amazon.fr Customer Service and explained the situation, and after they had verified my information, sent a code to me via text message, they confirmed that indeed my account was locked. This took several minutes to get to this point. But they said they would have to forward my case on to a security specialist and they would get back to me, usually within 48 hrs. Ridiculous, but I said ok and waited.
No contact came.
I couldn't log into Amazon.com either. So I called the Amazon.com Customer Service. After again explaining the situation and them verifying my identity which took several minutes they confirmed that my account was indeed blocked. But they said there was nothing they could do because the block was put on my account by Amazon.fr so I would need to call them.
I called Amazon.fr 7 times over 2 months, repeatedly being told they will send it to their internal security team. Once I even got an email from Amazon.es which said this:
You have to contact the site of our partner, Amazon.com to obtain more information about the restoration of your account, since our international websites operate independently. You can contact them directly at:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/contact-us
We hope to see you again soon on Amazon.
Warmest Regards,
Amy M.
Amazon.es
Your feedback is helping us build Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company.
I don't think I ever used Amazon.es so I don't know why they were sending me an email regarding my case.
In the meantime, my order that caused the lock had multiple items in it. I got a shipping notice that one of the items had shipped. It had and I did receive it. I also saw the debit from my bank card for the full amount of my order in my bank account. I also was still being charged for Amazon Prime and for AWS, although I couldn't access either of those at all.
Amazon had no trouble taking my money, but couldn't seem to grant me access to my account.
I can't access all the videos I bought, which is a lot. I can't access all the Kindle books I bought, which is a lot. I can't access AWS, which is alarming.
I called today and after going through the same steps of explaining my situation, verifying my identity, being on hold for half and hour, being told I needed to talk to a specialist...they couldn't do anything for me at the time and would get back to me.
I have tried repeatedly, over several weeks, spending hours on the phone trying to get this resolved. I have tried contacting Amazon.com and Amazon.fr. No resolution came.
So now I have accepted that I have permanently lost access to my account and all my assets under that account.
My advice: do not use one account for all your Amazon activity. Use separate accounts for media and orders and AWS. Beware that you are at risk of losing all your digital purchases.
Use different accounts for different countries on Amazon. Do not use the same account for purchases as your AWS account.
And stay away from Amazon.fr. They can destroy your entire Amazon account.
I can be contacted at amazonstole@opayq.com