TULSA, Okla. — Many of our favorite shows are on streaming services, such as Tulsa King, which was recently renewed for a second season on Paramount+. Unfortunately, scammers are taking advantage of the popularity of these shows and streaming services.
[ Tulsa King will reign for a second season on Paramount + ]
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) said online scams are up 87% since 2015, and now scammers are targeting streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu.
Sometimes, you can get a free streaming subscription when you do business with a company.
“Maybe you signed up for something and this is a bonus, that’s great,” said Amie Mitchell with the BBB.
“What happens is you get an alert saying, ‘Please activate your free service,’ for whatever streaming service this is,” Mitchell also said.
“You go, you click on it, then they ask for your log in information and it looks like a legitimate site, it looks like the streaming service, you go in and your password doesn’t work and you’re not quite sure what’s going on, you check a few things out and you realize this is not the streaming service, this is a fake website,” Mitchell warned.
Mitchell advises you to guard your username and password.
“Be careful of other services that are saying, ‘Hey activate this for free but we also need your user name and password,’ that’s a great way to get your subscription information, maybe your credit card information, you want to be really careful with how you activate those,” she said.
Sometimes, scammers will use ads to get their lookalike website to appear first in search results. However, just because a website is at the top of the list on a search engine, doesn’t mean it’s the official website. Always double check that you are visiting the official website. Scammers can make fake websites look legitimate in search engine results, but they can’t copy a website’s official URL. Before you click on a website, double check that the URL is spelled correctly.
[ Better Business Bureau reports spike in online scams ]