Netflix phish?

[gcgang]

I just received an email, saying I paid $97 for 3 months of Netflix, and if I wanted to cancel, to click below.

My 16 yr old daughter uses Netflix, and when I contacted her said that she paid less than $10 per month, so I clicked below to cancel. Entered my Apple ID and was taken to a screen that asked for EVERYTHING - birthdate, SSN, etc.

At this point I stopped, and I forwarded the email to my daughter. It came to her with a red warning on top of the email saying it was suspicious.

I then changed my Apple password, which hadn't been done in several years, and am somewhat anxiously monitoring things.

Not sure if I'm really paying the $97 to Netflix, but consider that the least of my problem, and I'll figure it out later.

Anyone else run into this? Seems like the "best" phish I've encountered, if that's what it really was.

 

[audreyh1]

Wow - good phish!

 

[REWahoo]

Why would an email from Netflix need your Apple ID as part of a response to cancel? That alone would seem to be a huge red flag.

 

[audreyh1]

Why would an email from Netflix need your Apple ID as part of a response to cancel? That alone would seem to be a huge red flag.

If they subscribed via Apple TV - maybe.

 

[MichaelB]

Anyone else run into this? Seems like the "best" phish I've encountered, if that's what it really was.

I've received a couple of "thanks for your payment of $xxx" which were not ours. In those cases I check the payment accounts to see if there are unusual transactions. I'm very careful with links in emails and rarely open them.

 

[exnavynuke]

The very first thing I do when a "company" sends me an email about my account(s) is to independently log on to my account with that company (i.e. go to www.netflix.com or www.amazon.com etc) and check to see if there's any reason to believe the email. I NEVER click email links unless I'm 100% sure that it is safe to do so (I'd click a link to reset my password only if I had just requests a password reset for instance).

 

[Bestwifeever]

Run your antivirus program asap too.

 

[Which Roger]

I always hover over the URL to see if it's legit before clicking on it.

 

[ProspectiveBum]

I always hover over the URL to see if it's legit before clicking on it.

Ditto, although you have to really read the URL carefully to ensure it isn't a phishing site. The URL may look something like account.netflix.{somethingunusual}.com.

It's the bit directly before the .com (or .org, .net, etc.) that you care about. If that doesn't look legit, you can paste the URL into the URL search at phishtank.com to see if it's been previously reported.

 

[target2019]

Gcgang, that's unfortunate. Even experts get phished. Your email provider should be catching obvious stuff. If you had web protection, that would have stopped the first page from loading.

 

[ERD50]

The very first thing I do when a "company" sends me an email about my account(s) is to independently log on to my account with that company (i.e. go to www.netflix.com or www.amazon.com etc) and check to see if there's any reason to believe the email. I NEVER click email links unless I'm 100% sure that it is safe to do so (I'd click a link to reset my password only if I had just requests a password reset for instance).

Absolutely. If people would just do this there would not be a problem.

Far too may articles will give all these things to look for to determine if it is legit (bad grammar, misspelled words, etc) - forget it, if you didn't clearly expect it, assume it is NOT legit. Problem solved.

After the fact, follow other suggestions as far as changing passwords, virus scan, etc.

-ERD50

 

[harley]

The very first thing I do when a "company" sends me an email about my account(s) is to independently log on to my account with that company (i.e. go to www.netflix.com or www.amazon.com etc) and check to see if there's any reason to believe the email. I NEVER click email links unless I'm 100% sure that it is safe to do so (I'd click a link to reset my password only if I had just requests a password reset for instance).

+many. I did that just today. I got an email from BB&T telling me my account had been locked due to too many logon attempts, and click this link to reset my password. I went to bbt.com and tried to log in. I was locked out, so it was a legitimate email. But I would never click a link in an email without at least hovering over the url. It's usually pretty easy to see if it's bogus or not.

And if someone is billing you for something you didn't sign up for, just delete the email. If it's legit, they'll contact you again. But the odds are it's just spam.

 

[Sunset]

The emails I get now that my Nigerian Prince has disappeared is notification that my parcel has shipped or they tried to deliver it but nobody answered, so click here to set up new delivery...

Of course there is no store on the email that I have ordered from in a while, so it's fake.

 

[donheff]

First rule of phishing is: don't click on links in emails. Go to the site yourself.

 

[folivier]

Also when I get these I look at the email address it was sent from. That usually tells me it is a scam.
And ONLY go to the website independently NOT by clicking a link.

 

[jollystomper]

I'm seeing more legitimate places not even send links in email. They will either ask you to call the number on your credit card or statement, or go to the website yourself. I find it best not to trust ANY link in emails unless my actions generated it (e.g. resetting a password that sends an email for you to confirm).

 

[W2R]

First rule of phishing is: don't click on links in emails. Go to the site yourself.

+1

I never click on links in e-mails. NEVER. And somehow, life goes on despite that.

I get e-mails all the time telling me that I have won a $50 gift card from Amazon because I am such a good customer, so just click here. Yeah right. If Amazon wants to give me $50, it would just show up on my checkout page.

 

[RobbieB]

Yeah, I'm a great customer and they never gave me fifty bucks.

 

[audreyh1]

I've gotten emails with shipping notices requiring some action for things I did not order, and urgent invoices/bills that needed to be addressed. The bills - immediate detection, the shipping notice - those take a couple of seconds to register that it is bogus.