Fake 'Watch The Odyssey Free Online' Sites Are Stealing Bank Details From Film Fans
Criminals are buying ads for bogus streaming pages tied to the summer's biggest blockbuster. If you hand over your card number for the 'free trial', your money goes with it.
Key points
- Fake websites are impersonating streaming services to exploit interest in The Odyssey, the 2025 film adaptation of Homer's ancient Greek poem.
- Visitors who sign up risk phishing scams, where criminals use fake pages to steal personal and financial information.
- The sites may also infect visitors' computers with malware, meaning harmful software installed without the user knowing.
- Criminals are running paid adverts to push these pages up in search results, making them look credible at first glance.
- Fake positive reviews on the sites are designed to push hesitant visitors into signing up.
What is actually happening here?
Criminals have built convincing fake streaming websites and are advertising them to anyone searching for The Odyssey online. You click the ad, land on a page full of glowing reviews, and get offered a free trial that asks for your bank card details.
That last part is the tell. A genuinely free trial for a film does not need your card number upfront. The failure mode here is obvious in hindsight: people are excited, the site looks real, and the ask feels just barely plausible enough to go along with.
Once you type in your details, the criminals have what they need. In practice, victims can expect unauthorised charges, their card details sold on criminal marketplaces, or both.
Could the sites also damage your computer?
Yes. Beyond stealing financial information, some of these pages carry malware, meaning software secretly downloaded onto your device that can log your keystrokes, steal saved passwords, or give criminals ongoing access to your machine. You do not always have to click anything specific. Simply visiting the wrong page can be enough on an unpatched browser.
The Guardian first flagged this campaign as The Odyssey became one of the summer's most talked-about releases, which is exactly the kind of cultural moment criminals time these operations around.
What should film fans actually do?
Check the URL carefully before you type anything. Legitimate streaming services have recognisable, established web addresses. If you found the site through an ad rather than by going directly to a service you already use, treat that as a warning sign.
Never enter bank details for a free trial unless you are on a platform you already know and trust. A free trial that demands payment information immediately is not free in any meaningful sense.
If you have already entered your details on a site like this, contact your bank now and ask them to flag the card for suspicious transactions. Most banks can issue a replacement card quickly. Change any passwords you use on the device you visited the site from, starting with your email and banking apps.
Keep your browser and operating system updated. The malware risk drops significantly when your software is current, because most of these attacks use known weaknesses that updates have already fixed.
Operational takeaway: the best defence against this kind of scam is one sentence long. If a free thing is asking for your card, it is not free.
