What a start to the day. A 4:30am alarm call, 5:40am coffee and an email revealing someone hacked my Netflix before 6.
There’s nothing like finding out someone wormed their way into your streaming account before work starts for the day is there?
We made those changes you never asked for – Netflix
Hi Al,
We’ve changed your account email address, as you asked.
-Email from Netflix
This was part of the email I woke up to yesterday from Netflix themselves, the trouble being here that no I didn’t ask them to change anything. But someone obviously did and somehow at 2 minutes to midnight while the house slumbered away, my Netflix account had a new email address to sign into.
What new email address though? Well strangely the email didn’t tell me.
You will no longer be able to use MY ORIGINAL EMAIL ADDRESS I’VE HAD SINCE FIRST SIGNING UP YEARS AGO to sign in to Netflix. Please use your new email address.
Yes if they had pointed out where the new address pointed to, I wouldn’t have had to check in with my own family, just in case my wife was up late watching Netflix, forgot my login and changed it temporarily somehow so she didn’t have to wake me. But no, neither she or the kids had any ideas and I was met by that unwanted feeling when someone dodgy does something dodgy, someone hacked my Netflix.
And then helping themselves to whatever they wanted to watch, they also decided they had no time for ads and changed that too.
Your plan has changed!
So once upon a time my Netflix was a stand alone deal and I dealt with them direct. Nowadays I get discounted Netflix through my electricity provider, AGL. I picked the plan I wanted that came with the streaming service, AGL dealt with Netflix from there on my behalf, a couple of emails later and everything is running just as it was before but with a discount.
Yesterday however after someone hacked my Netflix, they found that the ‘Standard with ads’ option I was using was not to their liking and changed it to premium instead (so they could watch Iron Fist episodes uninterrupted I guess?) So they changed that in Netflix, Netflix informed AGL and AGL sent me an email explaining why I’d be paying an extra $20 a month for the top tier I never ordered. Wonderful. The unwanted email trail was growing by the second!
Time to shut them out of the account before they can enjoy the Tyson/Paul fight then!
‘Hello, I believe someone hacked my Netflix..’
Allow me to save you a bit of time here – if you’re in the same boat and believe that someone who shouldn’t be in there is currently helping themselves to your valued streaming, ring Netflix direct. While on air I tried their online help centre but all it did was give me options on how to change my login in details which would be great…if I knew what my new email address actually was.
Naturally you will have to prove who you say you are so have all that info on hand ready to go. Having your Netflix service code will be a big help but if you don’t know it, someone can help you find it.
I didn’t actually catch the name of the Netflix employee who helped sought things out but she was very helpful and the process went along these lines:
-I gave up looking for answers online and rang Netflix direct on 1800 950 726, explaining the emails, how someone had hacked my Netflix and could they please put access back to me so Dodgy McHackface couldn’t help themselves to free streaming content.
-They made me prove who I was and how my Netflix was setup (through AGL). They also asked for my Netflix service code which I had no idea where to find, but then explained the steps to access it through AGL’s website. Not only did I find my Netflix service code, but surprise surprise it also revealed the dodgy address my account now had which went along the lines of AU-VV@megah.live (something like that.)
-Once I proved I was who I said I was, they changed the account email back to one of my choice. Now just in case my email had been compromised (still investigating that) I moved things to my work email. Then Netflix sent a password reset and I changed it to a brand new password.
No more idiots that shouldn’t be in there, joy!
So in the end someone hacked my Netflix, changed the tier…and then went off for a sandwhich?
Because in the 9 hours roughly they had access, aside from deciding I wasn’t paying enough for the experience, they didn’t do anything with it. Nothing. Not even the first fifty seconds of a ‘Is it cake?’ episode. I’ve gone through every profile and everything on the viewing history is exactly what it should be right down to the fact that my kids haven’t used Netflix for a couple of weeks.
So what was the point exactly? To mildly annoy me before getting shut out again? To give Netflix something to do in the meantime? Did they want to finish one of those streaming shows with the worst endings possible?
Maybe they were waiting to use it for something this weekend – perhaps deciding they didn’t want to pay to watch the Mike Tyson and Jake Paul clash. Maybe they were getting in early for the WWE stuff still to come? Whatever they’re reason, I’ve put a stop to it.
No free Netflix for you, idiot.