My mother tried to buy something on Amazon yesterday. It wouldn't let her check-out until she'd entered a code sent via WhatsApp. Which she doesn't have and doesn't want. She'll be buying her tat on eBay in future.
I dream that Amazon will lose lots of sales and backtrack, but I don't suppose they will.
Which country was this? I’ve never known Amazon requiring WhatsApp. It uses SMS a lot.
The only service I’ve used which does offer WhatsApp as a form of identification is PayPal. But even that is just one of many different authorisation options.
I don’t have WhatsApp either and never once found that to be a limiting. So I wonder if the experience your relative was having is more nuanced than suggested.
Are you sure it was actually via whatsapp, and not just a six digit code sent via regular SMS to the phone number on record for her account? It's possible whatsapp on her phone has simply hijacked the SMS client functionality and set itself as the default.
> "WhatsApp on her phone"
GP clearly said she doesn't have WhatsApp.
If I had a dollar for every time I've seen an older person that doesn't even know what application they're running, or can't tell the difference between the content of a website inside a browser window and an application that runs natively on their computer. I read what the GP wrote, I'm saying there's a non zero possibility she's misunderstanding something.
It seems like something you have to specifically choose, on the amazon account side.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeI...
I choose to not call a GP a liar or too thick for being unable to differentiate between apps :)
I also chose their presumed first hand statement than your unrelated experience with unrelated third parties.
Your point re: having to subscribe to WhatsApp notifications, if we're staying in the realm of "what ifs" and looking for the awkward but possible ways to discredit the claims, I can believe that she was enrolled without being asked. I've seen at least one person complaining about that exact scenario.
Cheers!
but then amazon would not tell her that she should find the code in whatsapp, because amazon would still be sending send an sms. it should not have any awareness of whatsapp hijacking the sms function, and therefore the amazon message should reference the SMS. if it references whatsapp then it means amazon wants to send to whatsapp directly.
No, my Microsoft Azure 2FA sends codes to WhatsApp, not SMS.
UK, where WhatsApp is absolutely mandatory.
“which she doesn’t have and doesn’t want”
Sure it was Amazon? Sounds like a scam
The frustrating part is that since so many companies collect PII under the guise of security (and then use it for advertising) it's harder to tell if this is a legal scam or illegal scam.
>if this is a legal scam or illegal scam.
the fact this is something to be distinguished says a lot about where we are now and none of what it says is good
Yes. I'd gone round to see her and I checked her history to ensure it wasn't dodgy.
What is a tat?
“Tat” means miscellaneous junk.
That said, the anecdote is made up or important details have been elided to make it sound more interesting than it is. Amazon doesn’t depend on whatsapp for 2fa. You can configure amazon 2fa to send an SMS and it’s possible that the poster’s mother has misconfigured her phone to claim that it needs whatsapp to read the sms 2fa message but I highly doubt even that. When I look on amazon it allows passkeys, regular TOTP like with DUO authenticator or google authenticator or whatever or SMS with a backup of sending the TOTP code to the registered email on the account. Whatsapp isn’t even an option.
Perhaps the options vary by region?
How does "tat" differ from "grot"?
tat n.
People buy it all the time when they practice retail therapy.Sure it was Amazon? Sounds like a scam