LONGMONT, Colo. — A Longmont woman is sending out a warning after she was seconds away from falling victim to a text scam involving Netflix.
Amber Torres received a text message saying Netflix could not process her payment. She was given a link to re-enter her information, but said something felt off.
“At first, I did put my actual password in. Then, I clicked to the next screen, and that’s when I noticed a foreign phone number, the weird website URL at the bottom,” Torres told Denver7.
Torres decided to experiment to see what would happen next.
"I was like, "Let me enter a different password." And it was a bunch of random numbers, and it still let me through,” she said.
Once Torres realized what was going on, she took it upon herself to warn others in a Facebook group called Voice of Longmont.
“I just think of a lot of people who aren’t aware of these scams and scandals and are taken advantage of," she said. "In this day in age, so much is out there in technology. They make it so easy."
Torres said she was recently the victim of credit card fraud. She and her husband fell for a different scam last year and lost nearly $3,000, so she’s become extra vigilant of frauds and scammers.
Netflix offers tips to customers on its website, reminding people that the streaming service will never ask you to enter your password or personal information in a text or email. The company says it will never request payment through a third-party vendor or website. If the text or email links to a URL you don’t recognize, don’t tap or click on it.
“I think the biggest thing is if you get some kind of payment that says payment was missed, I would just go to the actual website. Don’t click on the links,” Torres said.
The FBI offers these two recommendations:
- Don’t click on anything in an unsolicited email or text message. Look up the company’s phone number on your own (don’t use the one the potential scammer is providing) and call the company to ask if the request is legitimate.
- Carefully examine the email address, URL and spelling used in any correspondence. Scammers use slight differences to trick your eye and gain your trust.
Consumers can file a complaint about suspicious or criminal activity with the FBI.