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Free Netflix For a Year Scam via Google Calendar

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Sep. 5, 2019 2019-09-05T10:18:47-05:00
Dec. 9, 2020 2020-12-09T15:00:21-05:00

Online Threat Alerts (OTA)

Free Netflix For a Year Scam via Google Calendar

Online scammers are using Google Calendar to place an event that will pop up in a user's Google Calendar and invite him/her take a survey or claim a fake "Netflix Free for a Year" promotion. The links in the event will take potential victims to phishing websites that steal Netflix account credentials and credit card information, or to fraudulent websites that trick visitors into purchasing unwanted services. The fake event popup events or messages can be stopped by changing a default setting in Google Calendar. Please see the instructions below.

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How to Stop the Google Calendar Scam

Open Google Calendar Settings by going to: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/r/settings?pli=1
Choose "Event Settings" on the left
Change the option that says "Automatically add invitations" to "No" to only show invitations to which I have responded.
Scroll down the page to "View Options" and uncheck the box that says "Show declined events." This prevents Google Calendar from showing spam that you’ve declined.

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Comments, Answers, Reviews or Questions

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Comments (11)

September 6, 2019 at 3:24 PM by an anonymous user from: Edgware, England, United Kingdom

Is anyone else using a WebOS TV? I got a new LG TV yesterday and logged into my Netflix and Youtube accounts for the first time on it. Now I'm getting spam in my Google Calendar.

I was given the same snide "Thanks for flagging that someone or something is not, in fact, inappropriate." email from Google today.

September 5, 2019 at 11:55 PM by an anonymous user from: London, England, United Kingdom

It also appears in Calandar on Apple computers

September 5, 2019 at 5:27 PM by an anonymous user from: Paris, Ile-de-France, France

Actually you can report the event as spam (at least in the web interface of Google Calendar) by clicking on the event, then on the 3 dots that open the options menu, then on Report as Spam.

September 6, 2019 at 12:46 PM by an anonymous user from: London, England, United Kingdom

I did just that and got a reply from Google :

"Hi,

Thanks for flagging that someone or something is not, in fact, inappropriate."

Useless as you'd expect.

September 5, 2019 at 5:13 PM by an anonymous user from: Burbank, California, United States

This was great. Thank you very much. Could add one note about whether we should ideally decline the invite or just delete the email. Thanks!

September 5, 2019 at 5:03 PM by an anonymous user from: Ashburn, Virginia, United States

I have two google calendars. One calendar is shared to the other one. The calendar to which this was initially sent, was already set to disable auto adding events from gmail, adding events without accepting and showing declined events.

The second calendar where the original calendar is added STILL shows the event, even though the second calendar also has all of these settings already enabled. So that must still be a gap google has to fix.

September 5, 2019 at 4:25 PM by an anonymous user from: London, England, United Kingdom

Hello! Thanks very much for the article. Tell me, I did fall for it and clicked on the link. It just lead to an article really... But does it mean my mailbox or computer is compromised now?

September 5, 2019 at 5:05 PM by info

No. You can only compromise your account if you attempt to sign into a fake and phishing website, or download and install malicious software.

September 5, 2019 at 3:50 PM by an anonymous user from: Oslo, Norway

Thank you for posting this. Clearly phishing but also silly design from Google that allows these kinds of exploits.

September 5, 2019 at 1:26 PM by an anonymous user from: Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany

Kind of knew it was a fraud, but thank you for a confirmation and explanation.

September 5, 2019 at 12:00 PM by an anonymous user from: Houston, Texas, United States

Thank you for your help! This cleared the fraudulent invite.

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