Be wary of posts on Facebook claiming that you can sign up for a free ‘Movieflix” video streaming service that is ‘better than Netflix”.
The posts are geographically targeted to potential victims in a number of countries including Canada, Australia, the US, UAE, Bermuda, and Germany.
Often, the posts use the same promotional images, but simply swap one targetted country’s flag for another.
Clicking on the posts opens a scam website that has been designed to look like a news report about the “new” streaming service.
Links in the scam news report open a sign-up page for the streaming service, which is supposedly free. However, the site claims that you must provide a valid credit card number for “verification” before you can use the service.
And, despite the “free” claims, fine-print in the footer of the signup page states that, after a trial period of a few days, your credit card will be charged a monthly rate that is considerably more expensive than Netflix. The people who run these scam websites certainly should not be trusted with your credit card details or any other personal information.
In recent months, police and consumer protection agencies around the world have been warning consumers about the scam.
Many of the scam posts used the name “MovieFlix”, but some versions may use alternative names.
If one of these posts shows up on your News Feed, don’t be tempted to click on it. If you have already signed up on one of the scam streaming websites, you should contact your credit card provider as soon as possible and take steps to stop your card from being used fraudulently.
Examples:
