HOUSTON — 'Tis the season for big deals and giveaways, but not all of them are real. Someone contacted the VERIFY team after getting a text message that said Amazon wanted to send her a free laptop.
The text reads, “IMPORANT: Susan, Amazon apologizes! Our gift to you is this Macbook Pro. Fill in your details so we can ship it to you right away.” It includes a link.
Susan DiMucci says she took the bait.
“It takes you to a Google blank page as if you were going to do a Google search. That’s all you get,” DiMucci said.
Susan asked us to VERIFY whether the offer was real.
Our source for this is Amazon. A spokesperson responded to our inquiry, “No, this isn’t real.”
“When you first see a so familiar name, you think, oh yeah, fine, I know them, and I believed it,” DiMucci said.
Amazon has a special section on its website dedicated to scams and how to identify whether a phone call or text is from them.
The company warns scammers generally follow a common pattern. They connect with a victim by phone, email or social email and create a sense of urgency. Then they ask for some sort of gift card or processing payment.
Amazon warns they will never ask you for your personal information, like social security number, tax ID or bank account information, or to make a payment from a third-party website or for remote access to your device.
So we can VERIFY the Amazon giveaway is fake.
“I should have known better,” DiMucci said.
If you get a suspicious message from someone claiming to be with Amazon, the company wants to know about it. They encourage you to visit their website to file a complaint.