Fraudulent Pending Charge on my AMEX ED account

[MySunset271]

I logged on to my AMEX account and saw a pending 1 dollar charge for Amazon . I don’t use this card but it was one of the cards in my Amazon wallet along with two other options. Question why didn’t I get an alert that the account  was used without the card present? I have deleted this card, changed my pw  and AMEX is sending a new card. My account is already updated online with the new number.

TIA

[wasCB14]

I've noticed Amex doesn't send me email alerts for (authorized) small Amazon GC balance reloads. A $50 reload, however, will generate an alert for me.

And I'll notify a moderator to move this to the CC forum.

[GeorgiaBulldog]

I have had this happen before--I believe it's just Amazon doing a periodic check to see which of your stored payment methods are valid.  I have a lot of cards stored and saw a lot of pending charges on Amex, but they all dropped off with no issue.

[imaximous]

Many merchants do this just to check if the cards are active or valid. Then, you probably would've seen this pending charge disappear a few days later.

[Jude_Bray]

There is a notification setting that is titled "card not present" that you can set up on all of your cards, including AMEX, that will notify you of transactions like this. If you are really nervous you can set up a notification that says "if a transaction posts that is over $0.01  notify me" on all of your cards as well. That is a good one to put on a cards you have SD or don't use because you should only be notified if there is a problem.

[UncleB]

Something else to mention is that if the Amazon account was hacked, there's little reason to cancel the card, since the hacker can't get the entire number from the site, anyway.

I had my Sam's Club online account hacked a few weeks back; ironically the same day I had placed a legit order.  The scammer ordered three iTunes gift cards (electronic delivery)... I got an alert on my phone that Amex had approved a charge for $300+ and I knew there was a problem, since my earlier order was for $40 (and was billed to a different card).

I went online and did a chat with Sam's, and they were able to cancel the order (the gift card numbers hadn't been delivered yet, thankfully).  The rep advised me to change my Sam's Club account password (I did) and to remove all stored payment cards from my profile (I did this as well).  I decided not to cancel my credit card, since the scammer only had the last four digits, which are of little value.  I also trust that if something else were to come up Amex would have my back.

I'm not saying my solution was right for everybody, but it was right for me.  I almost canceled the card as well (I felt rather violated at the time) but waited until I had calmed down a bit to think things through.  

Edited to add:  I've always been a fan of notifications, and I'm a really big fan now. 

[TheReflex]

I added a new AMEX card to my existing Shoprunner account last Tuesday and got the same message. But I assumed it was a verification charge. It's gone now.

[j615]

This has happened to me on more than one occasion occasionally with the $1 charge from Amazon on my Amex. It sticks pending for several days, then drops off.

[Idehygd1]

I did the same thing on Sept 27 n the charge fell off today bt strange enough I noticed the last 4 of the card number been displayed online changed and the CID won't work so am gonna chat with then