Scammers are increasingly sending texts to Amazon customers pretending to be representatives of the company, and Amazon is warning shoppers to remain vigilant.

The ruse is straightforward: Fraudsters try to trick customers into divulging personal information or clicking on malicious links designed to reveal account numbers and financial information. 

On its website, Amazon insists that nobody from the company will ever ask customers for personal information, and lists ways to avoid so-called “smishing” scams (“smishing refers to SMS, or short messaging service, that allows users to send and receive short text messages). 

“Fraudsters can now insert their scam messages into a thread of legitimate messages that you might have received from us,” the company notes. “Scam texts often say that there’s a problem with your account, ask you for sensitive information like passwords, or state that you’re owed a refund.”

The company says that, in the last month, 40% of scams reported by customers involved fake messages asking them to verify whether a product order was legitimate by clicking a link. The company also says false messages have come from scammers pretending to be Amazon drivers.

Amazon urges customers to be wary of messages with “false urgency.”

“To find out if a message is really from Amazon,” the company notes, “visit the Message Center under ‘Your Account’. Legitimate messages from Amazon will appear there.”

It’s not difficult to understand why scammers are targeting Amazon: The company last year processed more than 4.5 billion orders.