No, Your Netflix Account Hasn’t Been Suspended

• Scammers are sending millions of phishing emails that ask people to enter their billing details.
• The psychological trick is to give the recipients 48 hours to reactivate their accounts or lose them for good.
• Reporting these messages to Netflix is a key step in rendering these campaigns non-effective.

An email scam campaign has been surging this month, following along the same lines that we’ve seen many times in the past. What changes every time is the target audience, as these campaigns are typically targeting specific countries. The currently ongoing campaign is noteworthy because it’s going after English-speaking countries.

The incoming email informs the recipients that their Netflix accounts have been suspended due to invalidated card details. If users would like to reaccess their account, they would have to validate their billing information.

The scammers are also setting a deadline for this action, giving the recipient 48 hours from the time the message was sent to them. This creates the necessary sense of urgency and increases the chances of having the victim click the redirection button that’s embedded in the email message.

If the recipient were to open a new tab and log in to their Netflix accounts, they would immediately discover that everything is normal and that there are no issues with their accounts or billing information.

That said, whenever you receive a message that makes a bold claim about your streaming, banking, or social media accounts, you should log in to the service through the official website, eventually after Googling it. Never follow links and buttons contained in email messages.

Netflix officially stated that they know about the ongoing campaign and warned users to remain calm and vigilant when receiving SMS or emails of this kind. As a spokesperson stated, the streaming platform would never ask users to enter their credit or debit card numbers, give away their bank account details, or share their Netflix passwords over email and SMS. Also, Netflix never requests a payment to be made through a third-party website or vendor, so all of these are clear signs of a scam.

If you’ve got an email or text message that appears suspicious, you should report it to Netflix by forwarding it to “[email protected].” The sooner you do that, the quicker the sender will be reported, and fewer people will fall victims to the scammers. If Netflix-themed phishing and scamming become too cumbersome and less profitable, fewer actors will engage in it.