This weekend, Amazon customer service representatives received a number of inquiries from customers who received confirmation emails for gift card purchases they did not make.
Customers said on social media that they received three consecutive messages, some on Saturday night and others on Sunday morning, thanking them for their purchases of Google Play, Mastercard, and Hotels.com gift cards, along with They never bought it.
The American news network CNBC quoted an Amazon spokesperson as saying: “An error in our system led to an order confirmation email being sent to customers who did not purchase a gift card. We are now sending emails to these customers informing them of the error and apologizing for the mistake.
Customers who receive the wrong emails do not need to take any further action.
The confirmation emails Amazon erroneously sent contained a paragraph warning users about gift card scams: “There are a variety of scams in which fraudsters attempt to trick others into paying with gift cards from well-known brands.”
The messages left customers confused and upset that a hacker might have accessed their financial information and purchased these gift cards.
An Amazon customer service representative said Sunday morning that the company had received three consecutive calls about the email issue.
Another representative said: “I truly apologize to all the customers who received this type of email, and I apologize for the anxiety this caused them. But rest assured that every account here is secure. In the meantime, we can just tell them to ignore the message.”
A Reddit user said that an Amazon representative explained the incident by saying that “poorly worded emails aim to warn customers of potential fraud.”