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.

▲

hnlmorg 30 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

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.

▲

walrus01 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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 34 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> "WhatsApp on her phone"

GP clearly said she doesn't have WhatsApp.

▲

walrus01 31 minutes ago | parent [-]

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...

	▲	subscribed a minute ago \| parent [-]
		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!

▲

NetMageSCW an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

“which she doesn’t have and doesn’t want”

▲

dude187 31 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sure it was Amazon? Sounds like a scam

▲

dude187 31 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sure it was Amazon? Sounds like a scam

▲

NuclearPM an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

What is a tat?

	▲	seanhunter an hour ago \| parent [-]
		“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.