So today I got an email from Amazon providing a OTP (One Time Password) for my account.
From: Amazon.com account-update at amazon.com Subject: Amazon password assistance Body: Password assistance
To authenticate, please use the following One Time Password (OTP):
xxxxxxxx
Don't share this OTP with anyone. Our customer service team will never ask you for your password, OTP, credit card, or banking info.
We hope to see you again soon.
The problem?
WTF Amazon, I don't have an account with you (My wife does but my email is nowhere related to that account).
I never had an account with Amazon until this morning and I didn't create it.
Yes, I did a bunch of checking to make sure that the email was legit and not some other scam that had links to a fake site, the first email had no links at all so I guess some props to Amazon assuming you had already tried to login.
There is nothing on the Amazon site where you can find a phone number to call for help, I did find these.
US: 888-280-4331 International: 206-266-2992
I also found these instructions:
Get to a live person fastest: Don't press or say anything OR press 0
They seem to work but are missing that when you get a second prompt on how to direct your call, say "Support", hold time for me was about 30 seconds.
So, over the next hour, including a half hour call with Amazon support (as helpful person as they could be) and 8 emails later, the account is now closed.
In 2019, I moved out to the Pacific Northwest and have had my address and phone number change since then.
The address and phone number used was my old address and phone number.
Good thing I remembered my old phone number because it was one of the "security" questions to allow me access to remove the account.
Also it seems that they went the email route instead of text message for verification, not sure why. Maybe they assumed that I would just go ahead and login like "normal" and authenticate it for them.
So to get the account deleted I had to get another OTP and login and then change my password before I could do anything else because without authorization that I was the account holder, they can do nothing. And by do nothing I mean nothing.
With access, I was finally able to authorize access for them.
I did some snooping around while they looked for the information I needed to remove the account, no credit cards on file and no purchases were done.
The link to delete an account once you are logged in is below.
https://www.amazon.com/privacy/data-deletion
Once again, good luck finding it on the site.
Finally, after about 20 minutes after I closed the account, no more account.
There was a problem We cannot find an account with that email address
And I was struggling on what to write about this week, gee, thanks Amazon.