Amazon Struggles to Combat Repeated Wire Fraud

Amazon employee steals thousands of dollars through wire fraud

By Lucas Van De Graaff, Marketing –

In July 2020, Amazon reported their employee Vu Anh Nguyen to the FBI on federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges after repeatedly and falsely issuing refunds to himself and to associates for Amazon products. He ran this scam by accessing third-party seller accounts and manually authorizing refunds for items ordered on these third-party accounts as a Selling Support Associate.

Nguyen allegedly committed the wire fraud between November 2019 and February 2020, accruing $96,508.13 across approximately 318 illegitimate refund transactions. He also committed identity theft in order to carry out wire fraud by using the name and the credit card information of a third party.

If all that wasn’t severe enough, Nguyen was also the target of an investigation run by the Department of Justice in conjunction with the FBI for a securities fraud called “free-riding”. It cost eight separate brokerage firms at least $695,000 and potentially up to more than one million dollars in losses.

This case is simply symptomatic of a much larger issue, in which Amazon’s fraud mitigation systems gather data to prompt investigations by the FBI. These prevention measures helped police charge four individuals with $19 million because of a wire fraud through a fraudulent Amazon vendor invoicing scheme.

If Amazon were to require its employees to undergo an EyeDetect® assisted interview — with questions such as the employee’s previous experiences with fraud, any current fraudulent activities, and any other suspicious behavior — Amazon could save millions upon millions of dollars by preventing fraud. EyeDetect is all computerized, unbiased, inexpensive, and fast. For a company such as Amazon, with an unending supply of cash, it would be a very simple endeavor to install and to systematize a routine of EyeDetect interviews.

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Photo by / Madison Kaminski