ONLINE shoppers are being targeted by fraudsters using a new scam.

Action Fraud, the national cyber crime reporting centre, is warning people that the latest Amazon fraud has seen victims lose over £400,000.

Unsuspecting members of the public are being mercilessly targeted with automated calls which tell them a fraudster has used their personal details to sign up for an Amazon Prime subscription.

The victim is then instructed to press 1 to cancel the transaction. When they do this, they are directly connected to the real scammer who poses as an Amazon customer service representative.

Other variants of the crime involve victims being told they are due a refund for an unauthorised transaction on their Amazon account.

Pauline Smith, Head of Action Fraud, said: “If you’ve received an unexpected phone call, or other communication, stop and take a minute to think about whether an organisation would get in touch with you out of the blue in this way."