BEWARE: iTunes Fraud

Seems to be happening all over the place. Too bad they are dumb enough to use a real email addy 🙂 gotcha!

I had 2 charges this am 50 and 40 for gift certificates. I changed my password but my bank doesn't open till 8am

Okay, so I don't feel alone, but I don't feel better. I woke up yesterday to discover my bank account overdrawn with iTunes charges and I couldn't access my account, someone hacked in, changed the information and charged my card until they couldn't any longer. It's extremely aggravating to report this to iTunes, they tell me that they have disabled the account, but then I need to access my account, they enable it for me under a new user/password, but I find that there are now extra computers authorized that I cannot deauthorize because apparently I am not the main computer any longer. I also can't delete the credit card info because there are outstanding charges. At least I could take my home address out. I have yet to receive an answer from iTunes about the security issue, so I will not be using iTunes until that's resolved. I've filed a credit card fraud report with my bank, so now I have no money in my account (it was a visa/debit), no debit card and no answers. I don't think it's enough to get an email that says "we're sorry". The least they could do is tell me that they're trying to stop these or are taking measures to increase security on the accounts. I'll be visiting the police department tomorrow to file a fraud report.

same thing happened to me today,
my apple ID and the password had been changed without me being notified, and unauthorised charges had been made on the card from the itunes store.
i think it's about time that apple actually owned up to having a problem on their hands.
this is not some fraudsters getting hold of credit card details and then going shopping for apps on the itunes store. this is an exploitation of a weakness in the itunes user database.

i've contacted my bank, cancelled the card, and have emailed apple but as of yet no reply from them.

Me too! Apple you have a problem and a big one. Yesterday a small purchase which I didn't spot went through my iTunes account followed by several more today. It's clear that this is as a result of the integrity of my iTunes account being compromised (my card - not cancelled - has not had any other activity of this sort). I spotted the problem when the fraudulent orders arrived by email. Apple were incredibly unhelpful and downright difficult when I pointed out the problem. The reaction was - there isn't a problem with us and speak to your bank, There was an initial small purchase followed by several larger ones a day later. My address details were tampered with so that the account information appeared in Chinese. Apple made a hash of working with me to sort out my account ID and deauthorising the "new" computers on my account - it took about two hours. Goodness knows how they would treat a little old lady with this problem - very badly I should imagine. Moral of this story...
do not I repeat do not leave your credit card details on your iTunes account. It's not secure and that's all there is to it.

Same thing here... not going to use iTunes until this is resolved. Took a lot of time this morning to deal with the bank, go get a form, etc. Apple needs to fix this, and QUICK.

Terrific! My wife is using iTunes to buy stuff all the time. 😟

My advice is to take your credit card details out of itunes - set the payment option to "none".
I only put in the details right before I want to buy something, and then take them out. Since I don't buy stuff often, this isn't a hassle for me, but it could be for a daily purchaser.



Note - that article linked is from almost a year ago, and it had nothing to do with itunes, in some cases.
+In fact, some people seem to be getting hit with charges on their credit cards from a fake APL*ITUNES business even if they don't have iTunes accounts.+

My iTunes account has been hacked. They spent about £125 on my account in half a day. I've told my bank and cancelled my card. I also got on to iTunes support, who disabled my account but didn't do anything else (e.g. cancel the purchases that haven't been paid for or downloaded!)

I've re-set my iTunes password, but I now keep getting messages saying there are outstanding charges on the account, and I can't remove / re-set my address details or change the Country back until I resolve the outstanding payment issue. Can anyone advise how I can at least remove my address & card details?

Just wanted to echo Tim's comments really.

My account details were used to purchase first a small amount in UK £ about £1.98 and then the account details were changed to China and displayed in Chinese before several more transactions in US Dollars. How can Apple let me (A UK itunes User) in the UK purchase from a computer in China in US Dollars??

Total about £125 and because it was debit card not credit card there is no protection and Apple will not investigate unless the bank calls them.

Apples advice - You are responsible for your account purchase in the itunes user agreement
Bank advice - Never give you card details to another company - Imagine that.. Very secure, except you can never purchase anything online 🙂

First outcome is that I have to suck in the charges and the second is that I will probably never use itunes again.

I still cannot get into itunes to resolve the issue because it requires a payment card in the UK - there is no option to select None as the payment type like most other countries.

I expect that the user base and revenue will fall sharply if this list of "informed" users is growing as fast as it looks like without Apple intervention. Imagine the numbers of people who are not as computer literate that have also been compromised because they have to have a card associated with their account.

And no investigation from Apple either - I think it is server side man in the middle. I would want to launch an investigation.

Follow Tims advice and do not store your card details online with itunes. Also although it is not the cause of my misfortune I would recommend selecting a really un-guessable memorable question to recover your password.

Just found this thread having posted on another one. I have the same situation. This is what I wrote early:
Same here. I only found out when I couldn't log into my itunes account. I got Apple to reset the password but it wasn't for my Apple ID and when I did log in it was a Chinese account. I don't know how (apple says I compromised my password but I think not) but someone changed the ID, password and country without my knowledge keeping the credit card details. Apple have been very unhelpful and as I now have a balance outstanding (the credit card was stopped while another fraudulent purchase was going through) they won't let me change the ID back or the country. It's crazy to think they actually want me to put another set of credit card details into an account that still has someone else's email on it and is in chinese which I can't read!. It is only for $2.98 but they won't budge on policy. The card hasn't been used anywhere else, only iTunes, and the password was very secure. Looking at these forums I think Apple have a big problem that they refuse to deal with. Of course they refuse to give a phone number and we have got nowhere with emails. The fact that the purchases where allowed in the first place seems ridiculous as they were bought from a chinese store with a UK billing address! It just seems far too easy to change so many details of someones account in one go with no email sent to the original email address. If anyone has better luck with this situation I would love to hear!

Within the past week, my daughter downloaded the free Farm Story app from itunes. On May 7, I received 43 receipts for purchases from itunes. Purchases were for "gems" for Farm Story from Teamlava LLc. Also receive 43 emails from paypal confirming payments totaling over $4900 had been send to itunes. That's forty nine hundred!
In 2 1/2 years I have made a total of $35 in purchases at itunes, and neither paypal nor itunes thought this volume was suspicious.
Immediately contacted my bank which is my primary source of funding for paypal. They referred me to paypal, who in turn referred me to itunes who can only be contacted by email. At that time only $1600 in charges were shown as pending at my bank, so I thought that was the extent of the damage. In later contact with paypal, I was told I had a billing agreement with itunes which meant, simply accessing my itunes account enabled anyone to make purchases up to $5000 a month without ever entering my paypal password. I had been charged $4929.15 by itunes, but $3300 of it was ACH transfers that hadn't hit my bank account yet.
Later discovered that when selecting paypal as payment choice you are directed to paypal where you accept their billing agreement. Simply says you authorize them to make payments to itunes. Gives no dollar amount. Who would charge $5000/month on itunes? (The limit for ebay was $100,000.) Check your paypal and cancel these agreements.
Itunes has been absolutely no help at all. Basic form letter telling me to contact my bank and change my password. "They understand" my concern, but itunes can't reverse charges. Oh and "have a pleasant day". Further emails accomplished no more than wishing me "pleasant evening" and "a nice weekend".
From reading the web, this is standard itunes response.
This is not a $2.99 fraudulent charge. This is almost $5000 being paid to one app provider Teamlava LLC. When attempting to contact them, I find their website is a blank page, and the link to support leads to an email address. This app was posted on May 2, 2010. In 4 days they were able to make $5000 from me, and who knows how much from other itunes users, yet they are still available for download at itunes. That's how much concern itunes has for it's customers. Not sure what percentage of that $5000 itunes gets, but they are in no hurry to give it up.
Beware when dealing with itunes and Farm Story app.
I'm currently disputing the charges with paypal and my bank. Unfortunately the bank can't do anything until the money is taken out of my account. Seems like if someone could act quickly, this whole process could be stopped and the criminals caught. Itunes knows who they sending payments to, and where the purchases were made from.

This happened to me this week!!! Is Itunes responsive? cancelled card with bank today. Filing police report tomorrow

whoever used my bank account set up a new Itunes account. Then charged over $500 in a week. Bank is helpful. Police helpful. Itunes better be! They have to have an IP address on whoever is logging in to the new account. I can't log in because they aren't using my account. Just my debit card. They made their own new account.

Hey there,

I just wonder if there is anybody here, whose creditcard was charged for a couple of Star Trek TV shows an a Star Trek movie. I am asking because I think that I bought one of those "stolen accounts" on www.ebay.com without knowing it. It was approx. 108 $. Who can I tell? I do not have a mail adress of Apple to tell them. Please apologize my bad english. I am from Germany.

I just had over $265.00 of charges on my account that I did not make in one day. Bank notified me of the charges and stopped my card. Bank is taking care of these charges but now I have charges in my iTunes account. iTunes wants my new card information so they can charge me for this last 39.00 charge. I called the bank and they said if I enter my new card number that I then just authorized this purchase and will most likely not be reimbursed for the 39.00 charge. I have contacted iTunes and have had no response. Now I am not sure what to do. I can't use my iTunes account and I am stuck in limbo world! Am I going to have to pay for these $39.00 charges to use my iTunes account again? Any help would be greatly appreciated!