Someone spoofed an Amazon Twitter account in what appears to have been an effort to deceive sellers and seemingly exploited Twitter's controversial "verification" policy changes.
An Amazon spokesperson told us the fake account had been "enforced" in a statement after we brought the matter to the attention today.
The imposter account had used the handle @amznsellerelp and the name Amazon Sellers Help - which was a close match to the real Amazon account @amznsellerhelp, which uses the name Amazon Seller Help (notice the missing "h" in the fake account's handle and the pluralization of the word "sellers" in the fake account's name).
The Amazon Sellers ASGTG twitter account brought the matter to EcommerceBytes' attention this morning
in a tweet, embedding another tweet by content-creator @lunchmoneyflips that pointed out the fake Amazon Seller Help Twitter account.
We asked Amazon this afternoon for context about the fake account and asked why the real Amazon Seller Help account was not "verified" with a blue Twitter checkmark.
The Amazon Seller Help Twitter Account had been verified, but on April 20, 2023, Twitter removed its legacy verified checkmarks for many accounts, including high profile accounts such as Amazon's, as
NBC News and other outlets had reported at the time.
We also asked if Amazon intended to continue offering support through Twitter with an unverified account, and what sellers could do to protect themselves on Twitter, and on other social media sites.
The spokesperson said the Amazon account was in the queue to be reverified with a gold check mark according to its correspondence with Twitter, and they provided us with the following statement:
"This imposter account has been enforced and our authentic account is in the process of being reverified. Scammers that attempt to impersonate Amazon put sellers and consumers at risk. We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance. We encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe. Please visit our help pages to find additional information on how to
identify scams and
report them at amazon.com/ReportAScam."
The screenshot shown in LunchMoneyFlips' tweet shows the fake Amazon Seller Help account was created in January.
When we checked mid-afternoon just a few hours after we'd reached out to Amazon, the fake account displayed the message, "This account doesn't exist. Try searching for another."
The AuctionBytes Blog has been giving a voice to online merchants since its launch in 2005. Named one of the world's top 30 blogs in 2008 by "Blogging Heroes." Weigh in with your thoughts on the joys and pitfalls of selling online.
Amazon Sellers Become Vulnerable to an Imposter on Twitter