The Federal Trade Commission fined Amazon $2.25 million to settle claims that the company failed to help customers who fell victim to identity theft, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. In its complaint, the FTC accuses Amazon of refusing to provide customers with information about purchases made with fraudulent accounts, in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
As alleged in the filing, identity theft victims who contacted Amazon “would often enter a Kafkaesque sequence” where a support agent wouldn’t provide records related to a fraudulent account unless they could name the person who opened it.
In one instance, a victim attempted to guess the fraudulent account owner’s name over 30 times, but Amazon allegedly wouldn’t remove the victim’s credit card information from the thief’s account. The FTC claims Amazon also failed to respond to identity theft victims’ requests for records within the 30 days required by the FCRA.
An Amazon spokesperson tells Bloomberg that the company has “resolved this matter with the FTC” and “implemented process improvements for customers who believe they may be victims of identity theft.”