itunes credit card fraud

Jeffrey, KUDOS for an excellent post, you should create user tip from that post and every time thread like that one comes up, just post the link. Not only it is the guide, but also an explanation. People, who expects their stolen credit cards to be stopped by retailers, do not know or can imagine how retail works. No store is ever going to call them and say someone stole your card, especially if they have no account with it. All that rage needs to be targeted at structure that compromises your credit card. Somebody stole your card numbers - used it in itunes, tomorrow will use someplace else- look for that person.

My 6 year old son for the milllionth time asked me to put in my password for some Dinasaur game. It was 1.99. No problem. Ironically the next day I was reviewing my credit card on line and saw over $100.00 of charges from Itunes. I approached my 6 year old and he was clueless... He is well aware of the dangers of spending money... he alwys comes to me even if the app is free. There was no indication of money being spent no emails no warning... Apple Itunes pretty much told me that is the way In-Apps work. I call this scamming... Taking advantage of children with their parents moeny. i removed my credit card from the Itunes account .. will be selling all my apple products... Crooks

P.S. Discover Card explained to me that this is common they are getting fed up with Apple

These days, freemium games – titles that are free to download and install, but your progress in the game becomes stifled or stalled altogether when you run out of in-game credits, and can purchase them using real world currency via your credit card or Paypal account. Well, another of such a case has happened again, where eight-year-old Theo Rowland-Fry from Bristol, England, played The Simpsons: Tapped Out on the family’s iPad, and racked a bill of £980 (which amounts to $1,460 thereabouts after conversion), where all that money was used on purchasing virtual donuts in the game.

Theo’s father said, “There were more than 100 purchases on iTunes for between £1.50 and £75.00″, and claimed that the family did not receive any kind of emails at all to alert them of the situation. It is nice to know that Apple sympathized with the situation, and has agreed to refund the amount in full, and it is nice to see the game itself come with parental controls from now on.

I am very happy to hear that itunes refunding charges for Theo Rowland, hopefully they will help you out as well. You can use that link to report your charges.

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/

This is itunes and app store terms of service you agreed to in order to use your itunes store account:

http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html#SERVICE

That is the line conserning you allowing your five years old to use your account:

This iTunes Service is available for individuals aged 13 years or older. If you are 13 or older but under the age of 18, you should review this Agreement with your parent or guardian to make sure that you and your parent or guardian understand it.

That is something that pertains to situation you described:

As a registered user of the iTunes Service, you may establish an account ("Account"). Don’t reveal your Account information to anyone else. You are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality and security of your Account and for all activities that occur on or through your Account, and you agree to immediately notify Apple of any security breach of your Account. Apple shall not be responsible for any losses arising out of the unauthorized use of your Account.

Here is user to user help forum. You just happen to realize consequenses of allowing to your child to use your account. We all here can understand your pain, but please do not threaten us to sell your apple products. If you do not agree with those terms of service, you had no buisness to use apple devices anyway. Before you start using any apple device - you do have to read and agree to those. Apple never made you accept or agree. YOU are the one who did.

Looks like I'm one of the latest victims of this iTunes fraud. Look at the first post in this thread, dated the year 2009! Four years later, and there's still people reporting this fraud. Big name news companies have done articles on this problem. FOUR YEARS, and this person or persons is still thieving money from people's accounts, causing banks to refund money to their customers, which proably adds up to, oh, I don't know, A TON OF FREAKIN MONEY by now. I have a pretty good notion Apple's not the one forking out the refund money that your bank uses to cover the cost. This CAN'T continue. All it takes is the right people to really investigate the issue, and we'll have our culprit.

ObsidianCrimsonine wrote:

Looks like I'm one of the latest victims of this iTunes fraud. Look at the first post in this thread, dated the year 2009! Four years later, and there's still people reporting this fraud. Big name news companies have done articles on this problem. FOUR YEARS, and this person or persons is still thieving money from people's accounts, causing banks to refund money to their customers, which proably adds up to, oh, I don't know, A TON OF FREAKIN MONEY by now. I have a pretty good notion Apple's not the one forking out the refund money that your bank uses to cover the cost. This CAN'T continue. All it takes is the right people to really investigate the issue, and we'll have our culprit.

Kudos for brilliant sentiment, that we all agree with. Problem is- fraud (thievery) is one of the oldest world's professions in one line with prostitution. To stop it with one post is dream come true, but you are more then welcome to try.

I just recently found out about fraud committed with my cc

I've been charged for over 8000 usd on Itunes since April 2012 until April 2013...

Living in Thailand I don't oversee the movements of my bank account myself

My son who does this for me didn't inform me and thought that Daddy can spend his money as he pleases...

After contact with Itunes, they confirmed that no purchases where made by myself, but with the last 4 numbers of my cc they could find back the traces of the fraudulant purchases.

They advised me to ask my bank to turn back the payments towards Itunes.

My bank replied they can not do this and send me to Atos a company in Belgium to do the nessecary...

Atos asked me to contact Itunes directly... just sending the ball back in the other camp...

I'm realy disgusted with this kind of practises.

Did Apple EVER get back with you concerning a resolution to this issue?

I have a question about removing your CC information from ITunes. Does removing your information hurt you or apple? It seems to me that apple already has the account information stored on a server so it does not have an impact on apple at all. If apple has a security breach would your information not still be accessible from the server database. Simply removing your information seems to do nothing.

Same thing has happened to me on several occasions where money has been taken from my credit card account by way of itunes purchases etc. After reading all the posts on this forum I am amazed that this issue has been going on for quite some time . I have also noticed that (after checking other posts on the internet about this issue) there is a reoccuring samelike pattern of events embodying the alledged frauds as put forward by Apple. There is something not quite right abut the manner in which Apple tries to explain away these unauthrised fraudulent credit card transactions. Come on Apple...????????

I would bet my life savings that the unauthorized purchases that a significant percentage of the people in this thread are reporting were, in fact, made by their children. Many of those people still don't know that the purchases were in-app purchases of coins, tokens, etc. in games that can be downloaded and played for free.

It is a fact that even if you have a credit card on file, even if someone has your password, they can only view the last four digits and card type when viewing the Payment information.

When an account is used On a new computer or device to attempt a purchase from the App or iTunes Store with an existing credit card on file, it is required to verify the credit card CVV on the new device in order to verify the new device is authorized to purchase with the current credit card on file. If you change the credit card on file on one device, all other devices and computers will have to go into payment info and confirm the CVV of the new CC before a purchase ca. Be made on each respective device.

Unfortunately, people fall victim to information theft from malware, phishing, corrupt waiters and gas station clerks, modified card scanners, unencrypted online storefronts, etc. every second. The information is often then sold and, unfortunately, often used for digital purchases. Who gets the money for purchases from iTunes? The content providers and developers get the majority, I believe, and Apple takes a cut. Who loses in the end, however? While it should really be the individuals that did not protect their financial information adequAtely or didn't read the terms and neglected to set adequate parental controls, that isn't often the case. With most companies the bank would need to return the funds, but Apple actually has support personnel that specifically handle reports of unauthorized activity on iTunes. And while you mock Apple's explanations of why these cases happen, you should understand that most people are not comfortable with being told that this happens because there are criminals in the world that take advantage of vulnerabilities that exist due to people's ignorance or negligence.

my bad day, this happened to me,. my money had been taken from my credit card by way of i tunes purchases. USD 80..3 time, mean USD 240.

After doing some of my own research on credit card fraud, I have to say that I am much less peeved at Apple for what is occuring here. In the U.S., our card technology is quite dated, and most of the banks that provide our cards are not implementing new technology that would make them much more secure, simply because the cost of reimbursing customers for the fraudulent charges is cheaper. (source:http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/12/22/weak-us-card-security-ma de-target-a-juicy-target/4165427/)

Fraud like this can happen to anybody, no matter how cautious you are with your card. My information was stolen again in November of 2013, because I purchased flowers for my girlfriend at a local Yoke's grocery store earlier that month. (http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/nov/25/yokes-fresh-markets-have-stopped-ta king-credit-deb/) In this instance, the criminal had to have been able to duplicate my card and use it to make a purchase at a 7-11 in Fort Worth, Texas. I live in Washington State.

Although I'm not sure exactly how my information was obtained back in May, the lack of security our cards have make it relatively easy for criminals to steal that information and use it. My best suggestion is, if you're using an account that doesn't have fraud protection, find a bank that does and make the switch. While I can't say that this would protect against the iTunes form of fraud, there are banks that have implemented the digital chip on their cards that make them more secure.

Lastly, I should mention that I don't think this has anything to do with your account information being saved on iTunes. There are more than a few people that have been swindled that didn't have an iTunes account at all. I think who or whomever is doing this has some other method for stealing the account numbers, and iTunes is just a way for them to confirm the accounts are valid. I have many theories, but they are just that.

Nice summary of the situation!

This is why I will never will own apple agian. I moved to andriod 5 years ago have never been charged.