Q: itunes credit card fraud

Furthermore I am quite peeved off that when setting up my iTunes Store account, they required me to input my credit card details

This is to verify your country of residence.

however I now realised that there is a method where under payment you can choose the option: none.

This is available AFTER you hae entered a valid CC number and address.
After it is verified, you can select None to remove your CC info.

This method is only visible if you are in another store's country and wishes to purchase a free app.

I don't understand this.
None is available in your own country store after you have created the account with a CC number.

Happened here too. Apple online store (not an email, not the usual email type phish attempt) asked for verification of account information on purchase. That day 1.00, then 1.00, then today another couple bucks purchases we did not make. Happened to be on bank account's website and saw the charge from today that for certain we did not make.

This is an Apple iTunes issue not a stolen card issue, from what I can see.

Cancelled cc, no more cc on iTunes (gift card only). Need to promote this issue widely.

May have spoken too soon, hope I have spoken too soon.

iTunes charges from four days ago just posted in iTunes history and that was the bank charge.

Paranoia runs rampant. Still took my cc info off and cancelled the card.

Bummer but hope in this case I was wrong about Apple's culpability.

happened to me 10April. Stopping the CC and removing info from itunes store. Apple must know of this. It's a mistake for apple to not look into single charges that are $80 and above. That would be a crap load of songs, Apps, or Videos. Should have raised an alarm at Apple. iTunes store is apparently not safe.

. That would be a crap load of songs, Apps, or Videos.

It wouldn't take a "crapload". Four HD movies would do it, so an $80 charge is by no means unusual, so there's nothing about that amount that would justify the trigger of any sort of alarm.

16 charges on the same day, for $45-$85 each for a person that averages $10 a month for songs only. If that did not raise an eyebrow, no one is watching the store.

again, not safe.

I doubt that with tens of thousands of users every day that anyone is indeed watching purchasing patterns at the iTunes Store, no. I don't know of any store that watches purchasing patterns; that's usually the credit card company's responsibility.

I understand your ire and frustration. I trust that your credit card company will be able to sort out the fraud.

Thanks for the information. This just happended to me 5 hours ago. I got some charges while I was checking my email for Credit(20 USD), Seller: C2Call GmbH. I did contact the company, my bank, and itunes, I'm really dissapointed that this has happened to so many people. I will not use itunes anymore.

Thanks for the information. I will purchase prepaid visa gift cards from Target or Walmart to purchase items online. I was online checking my email messages when I saw the iTunes Store receipt email pop up. I was really surprised. My bank is alreay on the job. I do want to take them to court.

6 charges on my credit card today from C2Call GMBH via iTunes totalling £170.90, none I have authorised. No telephone support for iTunes, no easy to find guidance on how to report fraud to them either. Me thinks their security on CC numbers is not what it should be and their customer service is nowhere near what it should be. Time to report this one to BBC Watchdog me thinks and get it this some national TV coverage then Apple may start taking this issue seriously.

Apple is like every other retailer out there

YOU HAVE TO CONTACT YOUR BANK AND DISPUTE THE CHARGES WITH THEM!!!!

Actually, when this happened to me, my debit card company told me to try to talk to the retailers first. And as I posted earlier in this thread, I was able to handle it with one of the retailers without having to do a chargeback. With iTunes, it doesn't sound like people have been lucky with that. In my case, the iTunes charges were for small amounts and were pending charges that eventually dropped off, so I didn't have to do a chargeback for them. But it's not crazy for people to try to get it worked out with iTunes (just not very effective).

I wonder if there are two issues here. Mine was definitely a stolen credit card number, with iTunes as one of the false charges, on a card I have never used myself with iTunes. The other fraudulent charges were for different online companies. It seems like if someone is stealing/buying stolen credit card numbers, testing them with small charges on iTunes might be something the thieves would do. Other people, though, seem to be seeing incorrect charges on the card they actually use for iTunes, raising the question of some kind of billing error on the part of iTunes. I think it's one thing if iTunes isn't that helpful when someone uses a stolen card number with them, but it's a lot more concerning to me if they are making errors and are then unwilling to help fix them.

@Dave Slater

I HAVE CONTACTED MY BANK & I AM DISPUTING THE CHARGES WITH THEM!!!!! (and for your information they told me to contact Apple and raise it with them to reverse the charges.)

My point is that various reasons I suspect that Apple is not adequately protecting passwords or credit card data adaquately.

I don't like to have my CC info stored on ANY online site! Those forms to save info for faster checkout? Nope, not for me.


Set your itunes store payment information to NONE and only put in a credit card when you're actually going to buy something. After buying it, set the payment info back to NONE.

well then you have a strange CC

every other CC out there normally deals with contacting the retailer as they authorized it