I got a phishing email this morning regarding my Netflix account.

[milestogo]

You know the type - it tells you your account is on hold and you need to re-enter your financial information. Its the most common scam.

I do have a Netflix account, but everything is fine. I looked at the sender address and it was from someone in a school district not too far from me. I went to the website and actually saw a picture of the person whose account was used- a teacher in charge of technology.

First I replied to the teacher and told her I would be reporting her.

Then I forwarded the email to the principal of the school and explained what it was. If its the teacher, this is really serious. But if its a student who has hacked her account and is using it for phishing - I'd say that's pretty serious too (but at least they are underage).

Geez, kids these days.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. It might be the kids, or someone else. Anyway, good on you for reporting it! n/t

[milestogo]

2. You can buy email lists with thousands of emails.

Probably half of them will have Netflix.
If you send this to thousands of people, SOMEBODY will type in their credit card information.

Its weird that this came from only 25 miles away!
The fact that they didn't figure out how to change the sender address shows they are inexperienced.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. The real tells are the links in it. An email address can be spoofed. Unlikely to be from the teacher.

The links -- the actual links not the visible label -- the actual links are links to the criminals, though probably only relays. In many browsers you can see the actual link by hovering over the label and looking at the bottom left or right of the browser window for a tiny popup of the actual link. Alternatively invoke the Inspector function by menu (or sometimes F12) to see the actual code which will reveal the real link.