Community discussions

[Iona-D]

I just got off the phone.  It seems that I was being groomed & set up for a scam just by attempting to pay my house’s annual insurance policy online this year for the first time.  Due to both the current situations.  I usually pay by Postal Money Orders for the really important sensitive stuff and go to the place of business in person to pay it.  I still generally prefer to limit sending or transferring money online as much as possible.

This scam is very similar to the traditional “Posing As Roku” scams.    In my case, I was not able to locate the link on the website to the online pay option.  So I googled the company to see if I could access another way.  Oh yes, there was a website that appeared to be the 50+ year old company’s own in the listing (doesn’t that sound familiar?).  But because of how the Roku scams were/are still done on the unsuspecting, I decided to call the insurance company printed directly on the snail mailed invoice bill.  

In just a few minutes, I found out I was on a bogus website.  I then chose to snail mail a money order just like my family has been doing for almost 50 years.  

So Roku & everyone here.  Thank you again for being so open about this rampant problem.   You just saved me $$$$ yet again in a totally unexpected way.  I almost lost 250 dollars that I was carefully been saving for months!

[Iona-D]

I'm far from the only one that has been saved.  Keep up the good work being done here!......

@overagain46 wrote:

"......thank you for all the information because Roku let me know that they did not charge for an upgrade to get my tv reset...and I didnt think they charge for connection but this person was very demanding so I will notify my bank and will go back and change my personal info because they put in a different email and gave me a whole nother email and messed up my internet service and spectrum was the one who picked up on it...thank you again for the info......."

[Diane6]

I just got scammed out of 234.99!  I am so angry. How the heck did these scammers get on the ROKU?

[atc98092]

---

@Diane6 wrote:

I just got scammed out of 234.99!  I am so angry. How the heck did these scammers get on the ROKU?

---

They didn't, and I'll explain in a minute. Right now you need to log into your Roku user account if you can and change the password. Hopefully the scammers haven't already changed it on you. If you can't log into your account, send a private message here to @RokuDanny-R and he can try to assist. Then you need to contest the charge on the credit card you used to pay them. Sometimes they'll back off and refund because they don't want to get caught legally, and sometimes they'll try to intimidate you into backing off. They don't have a legal leg to stand on, so don't let them worry you.

How did they trick you? They have manipulated the web search engines to make their site appear higher than the legitimate Roku web site. Then they depend on the suggestion function that all web browsers have. As you are typing in the URL shown on the TV screen, the browser will offer you suggested matches, and those scam sites often show up first, especially with Google as your default search engine. If you use the suggestion, instead of typing the complete URL, you get the scam site. Since they make it look like the official Roku web site, you have no idea you are typing the code into a phony site, which of course will fail and then offer you a phone number. And then they have you. 😞

[Diane6]

The ROKU was not connecting and a phone number showed up on the televison.  My daughter called the phone number.  We were scammed.  The ROKU does not work now.  I will be returning it,. I changed my password.

[Diane6]

How do I email you?

[atc98092]

---

@Diane6 wrote:

How do I email you?

---

Roku doesn't offer email support. You can send a private message to @RokuDanny-R and he can assist you. Users like myself can't help out with your account. 

[RokuDanny-R · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the posts.

For account related issues, please reach out to our support team directly here for your 'Account or billing' issue, here: https://support.roku.com/contactus. They will be able further assist you.


Thanks,
Danny

[tmcdonald46]

@atc98092 wrote:

How did they trick you? They have manipulated the web search engines to make their site appear higher than the legitimate Roku web site. Then they depend on the suggestion function that all web browsers have. As you are typing in the URL shown on the TV screen, the browser will offer you suggested matches, and those scam sites often show up first, especially with Google as your default search engine. If you use the suggestion, instead of typing the complete URL, you get the scam site. Since they make it look like the official Roku web site, you have no idea you are typing the code into a phony site, which of course will fail and then offer you a phone number. And then they have you.

A news article came out about this scam. A subject saying that a phone number that belonged to the scammers popped up on their TV screen. I was searching for how that could even be possible. The news reporter in the article didn't challenge the subject on where they really got the phone number from. I can picture some people believing that the scammer phone number actually came from the Roku device itself. I think your explanation needs to be at the top.