Police say 110 people reported fake Amazon calls in nine days, losing £86,837 in total. The scam works by making a call about your account feel urgent.
If a stranger calls to say your Amazon account has been hacked, it is almost certainly a trick. UK police say fraudsters posing as Amazon staff took £86,837 from victims in nine days in October 2026. That is more than £9,600 a day.
Report Fraud, the national service for reporting fraud and cybercrime, logged 110 reports of Amazon impersonation between 5 and 14 October 2026. The City of London Police issued the alert on Friday, 30 October.
The callers claim there is suspicious activity on the shopper's account. They may say expensive items or gift cards have been added to the basket, sometimes naming an unfamiliar delivery address to sound believable. Then comes the pressure: act now to cancel the orders and protect the account.
Anyone with an Amazon account could get one of these calls. Older shoppers were hit hardest, though. People aged 50 to 79 made up 60 percent of the reports. The other 40 percent were outside that age range, so no group is safe from it.
Police say the callers use several tactics once they have someone on the line. Watch for any of these:
Chief Superintendent Amanda Wolf, head of Report Fraud Operations, said criminals lean on familiar brands and pressure. "The best defence is to pause," she said. "Criminals want people to react quickly; we want people to take a moment, challenge what they're being told and verify it through a trusted route."
The alert box above lists the exact steps. The core idea is simple: end the call, then reach Amazon yourself through its official app or a number you have verified. A call you start is under your control. A call that arrives out of the blue is not. Amazon has also warned customers about requests for urgent payments and asks people to report suspected impersonation to the company.
The figures cover only reports made to Report Fraud in that short window. The material does not say how many people were called in total, how many reports ended in a loss, or how the criminals obtained contact details. Real losses may be higher than the reported total. Police have not said whether the calls are slowing down, so the warning stands for now.
If an unexpected caller says your Amazon account is hacked, hang up and contact Amazon yourself through its official app.
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