The email smelled as bad as week-old fish: It was a screenshot of a $1,000 cellphone I had supposedly bought on Amazon.

I quickly checked my Amazon account. No purchase was recorded. Then I checked my credit card account. Ditto.

This was clearly a scam, and the real action was the “Amazon” order number and phone number, with a Philadelphia area code, included on the email. I dialed the number.

The man who answered sounded unprofessional, but he was all business: He wanted to know my credit card information to “verify.” I asked him how he got my email. Agitated, he repeated his demand for a card number. When I told him I knew he wasn’t legit, he hung up.

I had been caught up in one of the largest ongoing scams on the planet. It’s estimated that hundreds of millions of potential marks are targeted by the confirm-your-Amazon-transaction ruse each month by email or robocall, according to YouMail, a phone security company.
 

Although media attention focuses on high-tech operations, such as the recent spate of ransomware attacks on big enterprises, these consumer-based scams appear far more ubiquitous and are less sophisticated than the headline-grabbing cybercrimes. They illustrate how cons preying on people’s trust have evolved from one of the oldest tricks in the book – brand fraud – which used to mean knockoff Rolexes, Louis Vuitton handbags and, much earlier, cattle rustling. Caveat emptor, pilgrim.

Now, after the global coronavirus pandemic made people more homebound, scammers have turned to trusted brands including Amazon, Apple, and warehouse retailer Costco as decoys in their relentless quest. The torrent of fake online inquiries and offers reached spectacular levels during the last year when millions were stuck at home and ordered online.