5 On Your Side

Vacation rentals can lead to costly invasions of privacy

Going on vacation could open a digital gateway, allowing strangers access to your online platforms. Worse, they can use that information to rack up a big bill on your credit card.

Posted Updated

By
Monica Laliberte
, WRAL executive producer/5 On Your Side reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — Going on vacation could open a digital gateway, allowing strangers access to your online platforms. Worse, they can use that information to rack up a big bill on your credit card.

Vacationers often forget to log out of subscription services like Netflix, Facebook, Amazon and others.

Whether it’s your announcement sent with Alexa or a new movie release ordered on Amazon Prime – you could be leaving the portal open for the next vacationer.

It happened to Cheryl. In her haste to check out on time, she left her Prime video account logged in at an Ocean Isle Beach rental.

Lucky for her, the next guest was cyber security professional Jerome Smith.

"Could have racked up a very expensive bill for the previous couple," he said.

With new releases running $20 dollars each, a rainy movie day could rack up quite a bill.

Smith says he’s seen Prime and Netflix accounts left logged in at several coastal rentals and hotels.

"Most renters don’t use pins or two factor authentication," said Smith.

Another issue: Smart devices and smart televisions.

WRAL's Monica Laliberte shared a situation that happened to her family.

"I was at a house on the coast when the TV suddenly turned on with some sort of message. At first, I thought it was a movie trailer, then I heard another voice message, and I was thinking `that voice sounds familiar.’ Finally, I realized it was my daughter’s voice," she said.

Turns out, her daughter was two and a half hours away at home, talking to her husband on their Amazon Echo-Dot.

Turns out, her account was active on the smart TV at the coast.

A spokesman for Amazon explained: "Alexa Announcements are intentionally designed to broadcast to all Alexa-enabled devices associated with a customer’s Amazon account, including Alexa-enabled Fire TVs. Customers can control which Alexa-enabled devices can send and receive Announcements via the settings in the Alexa app."

Smith cautions that everyone should secure their accounts and smart devices.

  • Never check the box "Leave me always signed in" unless you're at home
  • Use two-factor authentication to add layers of protection

As for the renter who was logged in this last time Smith arrived, "I logged him out," he said.

Here’s how you can log out remotely:
Prime Video:
  • Login to Amazon account
  • Go into Manage your Content and Devices
  • Click Devices
  • Click Deregister on the device you want to log out.

Disabling Announcements on Alexa devices:

  • Log into the Alexa app
  • Tap Devices
  • Echo & Alexa
  • Select that specific device
  • Tap the Settings icon on the top right of the screen
  • Communications
  • Announcements
  • Toggle off the Enabled setting

Customers can also turn on Do Not Disturb mode by either saying, “Alexa, turn on Do Not Disturb” to that specific device, or turning on Do Not Disturb mode for that device in the Alexa app.

Customers can also choose to disable Communications for any specific device in the Alexa app.

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