The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says Amazon will pay a $2.25 million civil penalty to settle charges that it blocked identity theft victims' access to transaction records.
As alleged in a complaint filed with the Justice Department, Amazon failed to provide many fraud victims with records of fraudulent transactions made in their names, as required by Section 609(e) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
To make matters even worse, the FTC said that Amazon customer service agents denied many consumers who contacted the company to request records of fraudulent transactions due to "privacy" or "security" reasons. Also, even when it shared the requested records, the company did so after the 30-day timeframe required by the FCRA.
"The complaint alleged that in other instances, Amazon agents told consumers they were not able to access the requested records," the FTC said on Tuesday.
"Amazon even refused to provide application and business transaction records to law enforcement agencies who had been authorized to, and who did, submit requests to Amazon on behalf of consumers who were victims of identity theft. Some frustrated consumers resorted to sending copies of the FCRA and FTC guidance to Amazon in hopes of receiving the requested records, but Amazon still failed to comply with the law."
