itunes credit card fraud

I was just hit this morning for over $200 in unauthorized charges from iTunes on my Visa debit card. Just opened the iTunes account 2 weeks ago when I got my iPhone and have only bought one song for $1.35. Canceled my debit card and now I have to wait and see what the bank refunds me. If this is such an issue for iTunes, why doesn't a company of this size look at whats wrong with their IT security???? I called iTunes this morning and they were useless, just as everyone else has said.

Same thing happened to me yesterday!! I called the bank and everything. They tried to buy 600.00 with my debit card number. how did you solve this problem? Apple is not helping me neither Im so mad!!

Apple can't help you with this. Someone used a debit card to purchase things from them. As long as that person had all the right numbers, they had to honor the purchase. That's pretty much the end of their participation in the matter.

You should IMMEDIATELY contact your financial institution. In many cases, your liability is limited. It is up to the bank to contact Apple and work it out.

Best of luck.

They have to have an account and an e-mail for a reciept to be mailed for every purchase, there should be a way to get that? Check the ALT 2600 boards, you might find a hacker to help or find out how to take it to court yourself. I had a similar problem except after the lowlifes found my card they bought tons of gasoline and diapers. The bank (wachovia) found them but decided not to follow up and prosecute as it would have been more expensive than the losses. That's not a theory, that's ver batum what we were told. No wonder they are losing money and going out of business, I'm sticking with pre-paid anonymous cards for any on-line stuff and smaller amounts.

find out how to take it to court yourself.

Take what to court?

I'm sticking with pre-paid anonymous cards for any on-line stuff and smaller amounts

A better way is to simply not leave your info in iTunes. If you want something, add your info, make a purchase then delete your info.
If the info is there, even a prepaid card, it can be used. If nothing is there, there's nothing to use.

You cannot delete your info from the itunes account,as it wont let you.. or if you can how can it be done as I have tried

Yes you can delete your payment info but not your name and such.
View your iTunes account info then under Payment info, select None.

Thanks worked

How strange - this has happened to me the same day.... i live in the uk. I wasnt even connected to the internet for 3 weeks after as moved new address. Bank are being nightmares as they are trying to blame these purchases on me 260GBP. I tunes surely have the IP addresses of these people and can give this to the police, but they are not helping me. 5 weeks down the line and i have been in touch with the finacial services authority and police ( no one seems to care)

It's up to the bank and the authorities to contact Apple, not you.

I tunes surely have the IP addresses of these people

Actually no, they almost certainly don't. I very much doubt that Apple does, or even can in any practical way, track and log the IP address for every transaction. Even if they did:

and can give this to the police,

the police would have to request the information. Whether they have I can't say, but depending on UK privacy laws it might take a court order before Apple could release any information about users. And even then, the police would have to go to extensive lengths to try and find the culprit; first tracking down which ISP manages that particular IP address to find out any location from an IP address. And then working with the ISP (again perhaps requiring a court order) to identify where that IP address is. And that would be assuming that the location wasn't just some Internet cafe or other anonymous location as is most likely.

While I understand your frustration, it's just not realistic to expect the police to take that much time away from more serious crimes to go to all the effort of tracking down what is probably a minor (relatively speaking; I'm sure it's not minor to you) crime. Sorry, but your best, and perhaps only, recourse is to work through the fraud department of your credit card issuer and hope that they will indeed label the purchase as fraud and reverse the charge to your card.

Good luck.

The same thing happened to me on 30th Nov. I think there is a security risk with the iTunes servers. The thieves are taking advantage of the fact that the credit card details are stored on the iTunes server. They purchased over £50 worth of downloads before Barclaycard declined the transaction recognising it as irregular. People don't steal credit card details to download music, it seems a bit pointless when you can steal music directly from some less scrupulous sites. I will definately not be storing any details with itunes in the future. Barclaycard are investigating the fraudulent transactions as iTunes will not remove the charges.

Apple should be able to provide the itunes account info for the fraudster and close their account - itunes should not let them sync their data and they should refund the money (the stolen "property" would still reside on the thief's device, but it's just data anyway - so give us honest folks our cash back!) . We aren't looking to identify and prosecute our little thief (stole our debit card and made a couple hundred in itunes charges), we just want a little more info so we know how they got our details.

Anyone from Apple monitoring this thread? Comments?

Anyone from Apple monitoring this thread? Comments?

No, Apple does not regularly monitor these posts, and won't comment on such issues here if they do happen to see this thread.

Apple should be able to provide the itunes account info for the fraudster

As to providing account information for any person suspected of fraud, Apple could only do that to an authorized law enforcement agency or possibly the issuer of the credit/debit card. And it might take a court order for Apple to legally be able to release private information even to those people. Apple cannot provide any sort of personal information about any iTunes account holder to you or any other private party.

Sorry for your problem, but you'll have to work through your card issuer and the police.