Amazon Accounts Being Hacked & Unauthorized Purchases: My Experience

Yesterday, at 6:38 PM, I got an email saying that I had placed an order, one for $100 and another for $10.

This surprised me, as I haven't ever logged into my Amazon account for months. I only ever purchased one or two things before. Apparently, hacking is something that can be easily done these days through key-logging, phishing, and plenty of other tricks. I admit that I have been skeptical of how easy it is for some random person out there to get my password and access my account just with the snap of a finger. This experience I lived yesterday has proved to me otherwise.

Such hackers tend to gravitate towards gift certificates for games, consoles, and other costly items. The hacker who took a hold of my Amazon account yesterday was able to figure out my password and take over my account, as my debit card information was somehow stored. They proceeded to make purchases with my linked card. I have notified Amazon regarding said issue, but they were of no help in cancelling the pending order and let the transaction go through. Below are the messages I received from them: 

They also gave me some considerably bad advice: to manually enter my info every time I order something. But didn't they just tell me that my key strokes could (potentially) be detected??

I am in the process of cutting up the card that the hacker used and am looking into a reversal of funds. I advise anyone who shops online (which is many of you) to NOT store payment information into such shopping sites which might seem sketchy, use PayPal whenever possible as Buyer Protection is always helpful (at least in my experience), and when such an incident happens to not freak out like me as your financial institution will reassure you. Just trash that card and get a new one mailed home to you. 

Side Note: DO NOT manually type in your card info if you think your device is key-logged. Also, this lady working at the bank told me that debit cards are more easy to get a hold of for hackers. The important thing is to NOT get your bank credentials leaked.

Hope you all shop safely and take this post into consideration! Love You All~

XOXO

- Jennie