Don't fall for this scam: Netflix phishing e-mail

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I just received an e-mail, purportedly from Netflix, with the subject “Your credit card has been expired.” This struck me as odd, since I don’t have a Netflix account. (It wasn’t until later that I noticed the non-standard syntax.) Assuming it was a phishing attempt, I looked at the source for the link it provided, and sure enough, it went not to netflix.com, but to www. virtualrealestateguide.com/netflix (WARNING: NSF Work, home, or anywhere else!).

I tried it out, and it was an exact copy of a Netflix login screen. It happily took Bill Gates’ address and Visa card info, then dropped me on the real Netflix home page.

I’ve reported it to Netflix.

It was rather clumsy, since my browser showed the full link of spoofed address, and anyone with any sense should have realized it’s not a Netflix.com page. But there are obviously plenty of people not computer savvy to pick up on this. Like my dad, who is getting his first Internet connection today. (He didn’t get the e-mail. I just hope I can keep him from falling for this kind of crap.)

2

Huh…I got an email last month from someone SAYING that they were from Netflix. I think I’m safe, though, because 1) my credit card DID expire last month and 2) I didn’t use the handydandy link, I opened another browser window and went to Netflix from there.

3

I got that one too, it was easily spotted because it said: “Dear Netflix”.

:dubious: I don’t remember changing my name to “Netflix”.

Also, these are easy to catch if you’ll just hover your mouse over the link they want you to click. It’s never the website of the actual place (i.e. Netflix).

4

This is the strategy I use in this situation (since it does legimately come up if your card expires). Go to correct site and log in. If there is a notice to change your card, do so. Otherwise, report spammer.

5

Thanks for the heads up. I gave my father a gift subscription to Netflix recently, and I could see them falling for this one.

6

I got a PayPal version of this scam. While I ignored that one, I later got one for a “survey.” It even included the email address where you can report fraud as a sort of psychological trick. I used it, and I got an official response that the “survey” was fake.

The funny thing is, I did later get a real email about my credit card expiring. Seeing as I’d already closed that card, it didn’t mean anything to me, but I was struck by the fact that the email just told you to log in to your Paypal account to fix the problem.

It seems real emails about this sort of thing don’t contain links.