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Comment by masfuerte

16 hours ago

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.

24 comments

masfuerte

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hnlmorg  16 hours ago

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.

  • mrec  7 hours ago

    I've never had it require SMS either. Probably because I've never given it a portable telephone number. (Until a couple of years ago I didn't have one, and I still use it as little as possible.)

whoopdedo  6 hours ago

> She'll be buying her tat on eBay in future. A third of the things I buy* from eBay come shipped by Amazon. I can't always tell if they were using the warehouse for logistics or the seller is doing arbitrage. Either way, it would seem Amazon isn't bothered by people "voting with their wallet".

(*That are new of course, used and open-box still come from the seller as I expect.)

walrus01  16 hours ago

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.

  • subscribed  16 hours ago

    > "WhatsApp on her phone"

    GP clearly said she doesn't have WhatsApp.

    • walrus01  16 hours ago

      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...

      1 reply →

  • alasdairking  14 hours ago

    No, my Microsoft Azure 2FA sends codes to WhatsApp, not SMS.

    UK, where WhatsApp is absolutely mandatory.

    • Sophira  5 minutes ago

      WhatsApp is not in any way mandatory in the UK. I say this as someone who lived in the UK and does not use and has never installed WhatsApp.

    • mdp2021  7 hours ago

      > UK, where WhatsApp is absolutely mandatory

      Noted. Another piece defining the current disaster in the uk, what was a civilization and now is a botoxed upper lip.

      Any examples (of requirements of WA)?

  • em-bee  13 hours ago

    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.

dude187  16 hours ago

Sure it was Amazon? Sounds like a scam

  • deltoidmaximus  13 hours ago

    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.

    • dylan604  7 hours ago

      >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

  • jayGlow  6 hours ago

    I has Facebook send a verification through Whatsapp, I legitimately thought it was a scam until I googled it and realized they do actually send verification that way.

NuclearPM  16 hours ago

What is a tat?

  • seanhunter  16 hours ago

    “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.

  • felooboolooomba  14 hours ago

    tat n.

      anything that looks cheap, is of low quality, or in bad condition:
  * Like most souvenir shops, it sells a lot of old tat.
  * I'm not spending fifty quid on a piece of tat.

    People buy it all the time when they practice retail therapy.