Amazon charged me £80 for goods I didn’t order – and now it won’t refund me

I RECEIVED four parcels in six days from Amazon that I had not ordered. The products were from China.

The products cost about £20 each, including a blackhead treatment instrument described as ‘Beauty of smooth and tender, retrieve your skin with zero pores’ and ‘made your skin exquisitely carved and clean’!

My calls to Amazon were answered very quickly, with apologies and promises that I would be contacted by its investigation department within 24 hours. But then I heard nothing!

I am annoyed that Amazon has treated me with disdain and contempt, that it appears to take the hacking of accounts so casually and that it seems to be fobbing me off. It even shut my account, so I had to obtain its number from my daughter’s one.

D.H., Leeds. IT SEEMS someone managed to get into your account to order these worthless items in your name and charge you. So you have received something you didn’t want or order and have been charged.

It seems likely that at some stage you fell victim to what is known as phishing. You may have opened an email that looked as though it was from Amazon or contained a fake link to Amazon.

When this directed you to what looked like the Amazon site you may have given away your account name and password.

To avoid this never click on a link in an email. Instead open your browser and type in amazon.co.uk to access your account.

Once there you can review your account details and make changes to orders using the Your Account link at the top right of the page.

Amazon didn’t close your account, but it did reset it and you can set a new password to ensure it is secure.

It has refunded your money and provided a hamper by way of apology. It has also placed a gift voucher on your account.

You were told you did not need to return the orders and to dispose of them at your convenience.

An Amazon spokesman says: ‘We would ask any customer who believes they have received a false or phishing email to alert us via our stop-spoofing@amazon.com e-mail address.

‘For more information including a video to help identify whether an email is from Amazon, visit amazon.co.uk/security.’ ON REVIEWING my Sky account recently I was appalled to find I have been charged for a sports package since 2016. I am not interested in sport and would never have signed up for this.

Sky initially told me it had been added by default. I was then told I had booked the sports package using an app, but I don’t have a smartphone and don’t know what an app is.

Next I was told I had ordered it via my Sky box but I wouldn’t know how to do that either. The person at the call centre then said someone else must have done it using my password, which borders on the absurd.

It was only because my Sky box broke and my son, who was visiting, looked up the account that we found these charges. Sky then suggested he added the package — but he lives in Newcastle and is no more interested in sport than I am. L. G., West Sussex. WELL, this is a mystery. Sky says sports was added to your account on June 27, 2016, when someone logged on using a password. To add sport you apparently have to click through confirming which services you require. On June 13 an email was sent to you notifying you of changes to the package with details of the new subscription billing.

Since the upgrade was selected, Sky has sent further notifications and monthly billing is available via your account.

Sky now says there is a record of an online request to make the change to your account, which could only have been made by someone using your password.

Is it possible someone went on to a computer to help you with your Sky package and inadvertently clicked ‘yes’ for sport? It seems a likely explanation.

In any case I am surprised it has taken almost two years to spot that you are being charged for it.

This is really a lesson to all of us. With paper billing we used to have monthly bill reminders drop on our doormats.

Now we must make the effort to check them online. Perhaps we should all make a note to check all bills on a specific day of the month.

Sports has now been removed from your account and Sky has sent a goodwill gesture.