In July 2020, Amazon reported employee Vu Anh Nguyen to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Nguyen was able to work the system so that he paid refunds to himself and to several associates.
On Friday, October 2, 2020, the DOJ brought charges against Nguyen for federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The charges encompassed the period between November 2019 and February 2020. He used his employee access credentials to pay himself and his associates nearly $97,000.
Insider Information
Nguyen was in Amazon’s selling support group. According to reports, Nguyen’s job “involved providing support for Amazon’s third-party sellers and assisting in the creation and management of seller listings using a ‘Spoofer’ account, which allow Amazon employees to view and edit third-party seller accounts.”
Those in the third-party seller’s department have the ability to issue refunds. Nguyen realized there was little oversite. He seized on the opportunity to open ‘Spoofer’ accounts for himself and others. In other words, he used the system against itself. He paid out refunds 318 times through eight different accounts.
He and his associates claimed refunds on computers and electronics. As part of the fraud, Nguyen was able to authorize “concession refunds,” where he was able to keep items without paying for them. However, Nguyen was also of interest to the FBI for his role in securities fraud. Depending on the report, he benefitted anywhere from $695,000 to $1 million from eight brokerage firms.
There is a practice known as “Free Riding.” Free riding is where (according to a Reuters report dated May 8, 2012) “a trader sells shares in one brokerage account and covers that trade by buying the same shares in an account at a different brokerage…this can be a way to profit from short-term price fluctuations without placing personal assets at risk. It can also saddle brokerages with losses on bad trades.”
It appears that Nguyen was essentially performing the same kind of fraud with stocks that he performed with Amazon. He was paying himself from the proceeds of non-existent goods as well as stock he never owned.
Opportunity is my Specialty
An unethical person will see opportunity in the shadows and Nguyen is one of those people who will work any angle he can. Even though there are laws against “Free Riding,” and clearly Amazon had policies in place to prohibit employees from unauthorized refunds, neither phased Nguyen.
In both cases, he undoubtedly rationalized that Amazon was rich and would not miss the money and that the stock market and the eight brokerages he played, were wealthy beyond imagination.
Perhaps his basic need was money, but I also feel that individuals like Nguyen play games of this type out of a need for power. He was able to “steal” computers and electronics over 318 transactions. It became a game. While someone at Amazon eventually detected a pattern, it should have been clear to the organization that no one was overseeing this employee. It makes me wonder if other employees have not (in the past) taken advantage of this lack of oversight as well.
There is no substitute for ethical training and then, a reinforcement of that training. For no other reason, especially for those who “thrive in the dark,” ethical training will shine a bright light. Ethics instruction essential tells people “do the right thing because we are watching.”
As Vu Anh Nguyen will be looking at a jail sentence, he will have plenty of time to reflect upon his behavior and what brought him down.
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