Complaint Review: Amazon.com - Seattle WA

At first, Amazon.com notified me that I successfully changed my password which I did not. Immediately I knew my account was hacked and I was not able to log into my Amazon account because the hacker changed the email address and password linked with my account. By the way, Amazon’s 2-step verification was turned on for my account; however, my cellphone never received any OTC text before the hacker successfully changed my email address and password!

Before long, I got an order confirmation from Amazon which was for sure not placed by me. It's near midnight, but I immediately called Amazon's customer service line and described my situation. It's after 3 times I called this line that finally their specialist contacted me via e-mail after 2 days and told me they solved the issue so I could go resetting my password. But before their specialist contacted me, my 2 credit cards saved with my Amazon account were both used to place totally 3 orders in one night. Fortunately, I called my banks to cancel both cards that night and the next day respectively before Amazon even started to do anything to help.  

I could successfully log with the original email address I created my Amazon account and reset the password. However, when I tried to see anything else, like Order History, it activated 2-step verification but sent OTC to a backup cellphone number that I’ve canceled more than 6 months ago. I don’t know why the system didn’t send that OTC to the primary cellphone number I saved with my Amazon account. But because I no longer had access to that backup cellphone, I had no way to pass that 2-step verification and therefore still was not able to access my account further. For this, I called Amazon’s customer service again and replied to the email that Amazon’s specialist sent me. But no response at all!

Shockingly after about 2 hours, I got Amazon’s notice that confirmed my password was changed again via the OTC sent to the phone that I myself had no access to! I really had no clue how could this happen! For this, I called Amazon’s customer service again and reported to Amazon’s specialist too via email. No response at all!

After several days without any contact from Amazon, I called their customer service again, and this time, that agent told me I can create a new Amazon account with the same email address which will automatically put the previous account created with that same email address disabled. I thought that’s a good idea and did so. I successfully created a new Amazon account and was confirmed by the pop-up message saying this will disable my previous Amazon account. I happily changed my password and activated 2-step verification again hoping that would end this “hack” nightmare. Unfortunately, the next morning when I waked up and checked my emails, I got Amazon’s confirmation that my account’s email address and password were successfully changed (by exactly the same hacker with his same email that he used to hack my account the 1st time)!!! I immediately reported to both the customer service by call and the specialist via email. However, no response at all even till now!  

I used Amazon.com for more than 10 years and was most of the time satisfied with the overall services. But this time, after going through all these troubles, I decided never to use Amazon.com for shopping online anymore. I really suspect that my Amazon account information was leaked or this act was done by Amazon's in-house staff. Otherwise, how could this hacker even have access to a cellphone number that had already been canceled by me while I myself didn’t even have the access to it? And their attitude towards dealing with such issues made me feel this company is not trustworthy at all anymore.

Their specialist tried once and did not succeed in solving the issue, and they just let it pass by leaving their customer’s information hacked and occupied by the hacker afterward! That’s so unbelievably irresponsible, especially for such a well-established company. And because of their irresponsibility and negligence, I got to replace both credit cards and reset all important accounts’ user names and passwords because I had no idea how this hacker could so easily take hold of my account just like it’s his own! Thank you very much, Amazon.com!