They’ve pretty much become a daily nuisance and everyday there’s a new scam to contend with. The popularity of Netflix has certainly made it a go to scam as the likelihood of having a Netflix account these days is high. Though, that may change with the new password sharing rules.

As with most emails, some make it to your inbox while others end up in your junk mail. Unless you’re expecting something, it’s probably best to the leave the junk where it is. This digital trash usually never contain treasure.

Some of the popular Netflix related scam emails include:

• Account on hold or suspended
• Unable to process your payment
• Recent activity on your accounts
• Payment declined

The emails tend to look very official and aren’t too dissimilar to actual emails Netflix would send. The safest option is to never click links in these emails and instead, open up your browser and head over to Netflix. Login and confirm if your account is in good standing instead of trusting what’s in an email.  To help you spot a fake, there are some things you can look for.

Check the sender email
client43168@bell.net is definitely not an official email from Netflix. You’ll notice in the other example info@mailer.netflix.com looks more official and it is. The problem is, its not difficult to spoof an email, where you can make it look like it’s coming from Netflix when really it’s not. Scammers are upping their game and it’s why I avoid clicking links, even in emails I’m fairly sure are not malicious. For example, with the Le Chateau acquisition, seems like Suzy Shier is starting to send marketing emails. I haven’t bought anything from Suzy Shier in years and so, my first instinct was scam! I’ve since unsubscribed but I waited to see that the emails were regularly showing up before daring to click even the unsubscribe link.

Hover over the links
Passing your mouse over a link will highlight the actual link details so you can tell if it’s sending you to Netflix or some random, malicious website.

Other things to look for:

• The grammar is passable but not without syntax and grammatical issues (random capitalization mid sentence, lower case to start a sentence)
• Dear Netflix Member, an organization their size can afford to use your name or at least email address
• Account information has no relevance to me as a person

If for some reason you click a link and are worried, don’t interact with the website and run a virus scan your device for extra measure. You can also copy the link URL and have it checked at VirusTotal’s URL scanner https://www.virustotal.com. If you’re unfamiliar with VirusTotal, I should mention that you can also upload files for scanning but think about the sensitivity of what you’ll be loading onto the VirusTotal server.