A Netflix subscription is a wonderful gift to yourself or someone you love this holiday season, just make sure that you don’t get scammed in the process. Phishing is always a possibility when online, and it is important to be careful with what you do, and not give your sensitive information away carelessly just because a legitimate looking email says so. From ‘Fortnite’ to Amazon, scammers will try to steal your money and information any way they can, and it looks like Netflix is a recent mark of theirs.
The Federal Trade Commission, has just issued a warning about a phishing attempt involving the streaming service Netflix on their official blog. On this post, the FTC included the scam email and pointed out how it is illegitimate. For starters, the email addresses the person it was sent to as “Hi Dear” which is far too informal to be an official email. It sounds like it was sent by your grandmother, not from Netflix.
The email also spells ‘Center’ as ‘Centre,’ which is very odd, considering Netflix is an American-based company. Another dead giveaway was the inclusion of an international phone number, which again is odd for a company based in America. The FTC goes on to cite other dead giveaway signs of fraudulent emails, and encourages users to report fraudulent emails to the FTC.
If you receive an email that you are unsure about, you can always go to the website in question (not through the link in the email, but in a separate window entirely) and email their support team to inquire about the legitimacy of the email you receive. Your information can be stolen in seconds, and the repercussions can and will last far longer than that.
