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I'd imagine that the illegality of fraudulently using an Amazon account would be more clearcut and easier to prosecute.

The problem here is usually the people doing this are just kids in the "scene". They go after original names on all different mediums like xbox live, twitter, instagram, etc. Usually the accounts sell from $100 up to $1000+, but they don't really realize the potential of what they could do with this.

They could easily put their minor SE skills towards hijacking high quality information, but instead they use it to get known for stealing usernames.

Same sort of thing targeting low numbered ICQ accounts back years ago. I had mine stolen from under me and while it doesn't actually matter anymore, it did upset and make me angry at the time.

I guess if they can't resell it they do it for shits and giggles, and because grabbing a low numbered/low lettered anything these days is a decent trophy to have.