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[Cre Moonin]

I'm asking is because I recently acquired a slightly used Roku TV that had 1 previous owner. This owner neglected to sign out reset his TV to factory settings before giving it to me, so the TV is still tied to his Roku account. It would be nice to have the option to use this Roku Account that I created today to have the option to rent some non-free movies on the Roku Channel using my payment details. Any help more experienced Roku users could provide would be much appreciated!

In retrospect I probably should have asked my brother to help me do a factory reset while he was hooking it up and before I downloaded and signed in to my various streaming channels, but I was so excited to try it being a first time Smart TV User that it slipped my mind. Sometimes I can be such an Airhead! LOL! Any help that more experienced Roku Smart TV Users could Provide would be much Appreciated!

You can change the email address on your Roku account at That updates the account itself. The email address shown on your Roku device should update the next time it communicates with the Roku servers.

If you want to change the user account on a Roku device, you have to do a factory reset and configure it with the new account. All your existing installed channels will be removed and whatever channels attached to the new account will be installed. You will have to add any personal login credentials again for channels that require a login, such as Netflix.

@Jenny349 My initial reaction was to "just say no." However, I then realized that Netflix memberships are geographically based. So a US membership won't be workable on servers in another country, or the content will be limited. I have friends in other countries that use a VPN so that they can access the US based content on both Amazon and Netflix.

I would not give out your personal password, but if many of your guests are from other countries far away, it may be worth it to purchase a separate guest membership for your property. On the scale of things, it's a small price to pay for happy/happier guests.

@Jenny349 Perhaps they tried and ran into the issues I mentioned. I think you can log in but you get a message that your content is limited. Something like that. I experienced that the last time I traveled outside the U.S., but it's been a while so I don't remember the exact message.

That's a good question, but when I look at the billing info when logged into my account, I can't see anywhere where sensitive info is displayed, only the email address that I am signed up with (password is hidden). Perhaps that's enough for someone who knows what they are doing to scam you, but it seems Netflix already has in place security measures.

I would be more worried about guests using services where there are additional fees, e.g. Amazon Prime or Apple TV+, where there is both included content and paid for content. Guests could run up quite the bill if they had access to your personal account. Even if you set up separate accounts for guests, I imagine they could still do this, unless there is a way to restrict that?

@Jenny349

The TV in the guest apartment is set up so they only need to click on Netflix app in the menu. I just have one account but two devices can use it at the same time. They don't enter a password its already entered. The option is "John" me and "Airbnb Guest" and in insructions I ask they click on the the Guest one, so they don't populate my selections with the kind of shows they like to watch. One guest with a kid just checked out and so now I see a bunch of cartoon shows which means mom clicked on my channel, but not a big deal. They don't have any passwords and can access streaming cable and NF just by clicking on the app option. You don't need a separate account for them at least here in the US. I have have had one guest sign into their account so need to check each time to make sure guest didn't sign out of my account and into theirs.

Nope. Nope. Nope. (not to mention remote access to your account after they leave). You can either pay for a Netflix account for the unit (last resort), or you can buy a Roku box and put it in guest mode so they can't log into your accounts.

We provide a DVD player with a ton of movies and television series.

We once had a guest ask for the cable password to buy a movie and offered to pay the cost. She was such a great guest we waived the fee ($3.95) and she didn't abuse the privilege during her stay. But for the most part, nope - we don't give out passwords. But I did stay at an Airbnb that had streaming services already activated and I may consider that for future (I'm dropping cable due to the expense), but I will child-lock any pay-per-view options if I do.

BTW - Roku TV bought Quibi and rebranded as Roku Originals (free), and there are plenty of other apps on Roku that can entertain guests with free streaming and movies without them needing your passwords.

I've recently been doing a bit of web development so I've been thinking more about authentication and stuff. On Netflix I noticed there is an extra option on the Account page to de-authorize other devices. My girlfriend changed her password but I was still able to use it without re-entering the password till she logged out other devices.

Chaning password doesnt matter becouse the device has autorization already probably in the form of a refresh token stored someplace. So its not storing a password its storing an autorization token of some kind.

This shows a list of all the crap I have loged in to using my facebook account. Now I have probably changed my facebook password sevral times it wont matter I will still have access. Some of these are mobil apps i have installed on my cellphone at one time or another. Even if i dont use them they still have access.

I don't have a Netflix account and never have done. I have a Gmail address which I have never used for public communication. Suddenly I started getting email to this Gmail address from Netflix - not a "Welcome to Netflix" email or one requesting address verification, but what looked like a monthly promo for an existing account. This was addressed to someone with a different real name, with that name not similar in any way to the Gmail name.

After a few of these messages I decided to investigate by going to Netflix and trying to log in with that email address. Using the "forgotten password" option I was able to get a password reset email, change the password and log in. The account appeared to be from Brazil, with some watch history but no other personal details stored and no payment information.

Soon the emails from Netflix started to ask me to update payment information. I didn't, of course, and then they changed to "your account will be suspended" and then "your account has been suspended". The "come back to Netflix" emails are still coming in occasionally.

I don't see how this could possibly be a phishing attempt - I carefully checked that I was on the real Netflix site, used a throwaway password not used on any other sites, and did not enter any of my personal information. I also checked the headers of the emails carefully and they were sent by Netflix. So is this just a mistake on somebody's part, mistyping an email address (although it's surprising that Netflix accepted it with no verification), or something more sinister?

(Note that the above steps don't include any "password reset" step for Jim to access the account; that's because the email from Netflix includes authenticated links that won't ask for it. The attacker wants the victim to click on the email links instead of visiting Netflix manually, this is what enables "Eve" to log back in to the account in step 7. Or, since Netflix emails authenticated links, possibly "Eve" already has one.)

The above situation is partially caused by Netflix (understandably) not recognizing Gmail's "dots don't matter" feature where email sent to [email protected] and to [email protected] end up in the same account. That doesn't really matter in your case (given that if this is how you're trying to be scammed, step 1 was skipped entirely), however.

The most probable situation is that someone used an arbitrary Gmail address (yours) in order to sign up for a free trial, or mistakenly tried to change their email to the wrong address (maybe to have a friend/family also get emails).

This would not be a "hack" or even a phishing attempt, just using any available address. This does mean that your Gmail address could not be used for a free trial at Netflix, so there is that negative impact to you.

As a side note, by logging into someone else's account, you have violated many country's "unauthorised access" laws. I would not make a habit of doing this (or telling others on public sites that you have".

I get dozens to hundreds of e-mails from legitimate companies (car dealers, LA dept of water and power, Macys.com, cell phone activation notes, the payroll company ADP, and Nationwide insurance) from people with my first name and an initial matching my last name.

The worst was in early 2019, when I received medical records (Lab results in a .PDF file) - a clear HIPAA violation, since e-mail isn't an authenticated or encrypted communications channel. The "medical records" person, who should know the law, was the sender of the e-mail.

In my case, none of them are nefarious, but represent clueless users or even worse, clueless sales clerks (such as Lenscrafters in Maryland), the Apple store in Manhattan, and others too numerous to mention.

I got emails from Netflix too saying that my account was cancelled and that there was a sign in attempt somewhere from the US... except that I live in Canada, and have never made a Netflix account in the first place. I went directly to the Netflix website and was able to speak to a representative, and they deleted the account. There was no payment information either. I don't understand why this happened, either someone has a similar email address yet without the dots, or perhaps there is some sinister reason, but I wouldn't know. I've wondered if someone might do this hoping that the other person would fill in their payment information, thus enabling the account.

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