Noida: Amazon officials booked as user’s account hacked

NOIDA: A city-based Supreme Court advocate has filed a police complaint alleging her Amazon account was hacked, her email address on it changed and orders placed without her knowledge. An FIR against unknown Amazon officials and a Madhya Pradesh resident has been lodged.
In her complaint, lawyer Surabhi Aggarwal said on August 6, she noticed suspicious activity on her Amazon account and was not able to log in.It also asked for Prime Video subscription payment, which she had already bought in February.
Aggarwal said when she called Amazon customer care, she was transferred to the accounts team, where a person named Ajay said her email ID was changed on June 25, and that Amazon had emailed her in this regard. When Aggarwal denied receiving any email, she was informed that multiple accounts existed with the same email ID, registered number and billing address in Noida, and that Prime services had been transferred from her own Gmail account to 42h3b2b@ichigo.me.
“He said Amazon would suspend/disable my account to carry out the investigation,” she said. An email to reset her password didn’t achieve much, Aggarwal said, as the OTP was delivered to another number insteadof her own.
Later, Aggarwal said, Tanvir, a primary department executive, told her that another name and address had been added to her account, which was now registered in the name of one Omkar, a resident of MP’s Shadora. Orders for several items, including Bluetooth headset buds, had been placed too, and the registered number had also changed, he told her. Despite assurances from the Amazon executives of an update, she alleged there was no communication. Instead, on August 8, Aggarwal received an email asking her to clear Amazon Pay Later dues — services she said she never availed.
Aggarwal then sent an email to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and received a reply from his office that the issue of security breach had been investigated and resolved. However, her account is still suspended, she alleged, adding that she is yet to be informed about the number of products ordered through her account.
The lawyer said in September, she had received a call from a UK number, from a person who said he was an Amazon representative. “I told him they should block the orders, but to no avail,” she alleged.
The woman filed a complaint with the Sector 20 police on August 25, following which an FIR was lodged under IPC section 420 (cheating) and sections 65 and 66 of the IT Act. Additional DCP (Noida) Ranvijay Singh said initial investigation revealed that the Amazon account had been hacked, and that they will contact the company to enquire into any internal fault that may have led to this.
“Amazon’s role is being verified. Prima facie, there is ambiguity on their part too. If someone hacked the account, their security mechanism, which could have prevented it, will be looked into,” he said. An Amazon India spokesperson said they “have just been made aware of the matter and are in the process of retrieving the details from the concerned police station to help resolve the issue”.