Founded by the Federal Trade Commission, National Consumer Protection Week is a time to commemorate efforts around helping consumers understand their rights and how to avoid scams. In celebration of the week, Amazon co-hosted a reception on March 7, 2024 with the Better Business Bureau Institute for Marketplace Trust (BBB), Consumer Action, the National Consumers League, Project GOAL, and Safe Kids Worldwide. This is the fourth year we have co-hosted an event with consumer groups in recognition of consumer protection efforts happening around the world.
The reception brought together over 50 consumer protection advocates from 12 consumer organizations. Steve Hartell, vice president, Amazon Federal Public Policy, provided opening remarks, and Abigail Bishop, head of external relations for scam prevention, spoke more in depth about how Amazon protects our customers, and consumers, from scams.
“Scams are not a new problem, but unfortunately, they are a growing problem,” Bishop said to reception attendees. “Thank you so much for everything you all do to protect consumers.”
Bishop went on to highlight Amazon’s approach to helping keep our customers safe and our call for collaboration to address shared challenges from the article, “Amazon charts course for protecting consumers from scams.” Building innovative technologies that shield accounts and detect fraudulent attempts, creating educational initiatives to help consumers know it’s really us, and fostering partnerships with law enforcement to hold bad actors accountable are some of the ways our teams work to keep customers safe—and their efforts are having an impact. In 2023, the number of Amazon customers that fell victim to a scam where a bad actor tried to impersonate Amazon decreased by 15% from the previous year.
And while we have made it harder for bad actors to impersonate Amazon, we continue to share relevant educational information with consumers around ever-evolving bad actor tactics and how to identify them. As part of these efforts, we regularly publish the latest scam trends we see affecting Amazon customers.
Working across silos to stop scams at the source and helping consumers avoid and recover from them when they need it most are important next steps in continuing to address this global challenge.
“I think it illuminates all the great work Amazon is doing to keep people safe,” said Joan Giovanni, senior director, BBB, in response to the publication of the About Amazon article. “The closing call to action about working together across industries is something Amazon has been consistent about, and we are proud to be partners for that reason (among many others). Powerful piece.”
As the event came to close, attendees reflected on the connections made at the National Consumer Protection Week reception.
“Thank you for including us in this event. It was wonderful to connect with our partners in the consumer community in honor of National Consumer Protection week,” said John Breyault, vice president, public policy, telecommunications, and fraud at the National Consumers League. “We appreciate Amazon’s diligent efforts to stamp out fake online reviews, counterfeits, and other scams.”
Whether it be joining Consumers International’s Change Network, working on consumer education initiatives like impersonation scams with the BBB, support for young adults with the Global Cyber Alliance, and protecting small businesses with Take Five in the UK, Amazon will continue to find ways to stop scams and protect consumers by working together with consumer advocates across industries and around the world. To learn more about Amazon’s approach to protecting consumers from impersonation scams, visit our Scam Prevention page here.