itunes account hacked

CrisKin -
No, that's the way it works.

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! I also can't seem change my card option to none I am guessing until I pay the balance and it has been cleared. Am I going to have to pay for these $39.00 charges to use my iTunes account? If I decide to put in new credit info can I remove the credit card info? At this point I can not remove my old card info at all. Will I be reimbursed for the amount from iTunes Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I have had the exact same experience, also starting on the 12th of July. My dealings with Apple have been incredibly frustrating, and they continue to blame me, suggesting that the fault is with my bank or identity theft.

It seems quite clear there is a vulnerability in their store that they are unwilling to admit to, solve, or deal with.

I finally just got back into my account that was hacked on 6/25 for $134 - $40ish dollars at a time for movies.

I checked my bank account on a Friday afternoon and saw two pre-authorization charges that I did not do:
820250 POS PREAUTH APL*ITUNES 866-712-7753 CA US 48.10
821100 POS PREAUTH APL*ITUNES 866-712-7753 CA US 42.74

I tried to access my account with the password that I just reset on 5/31/10 and was unable to login. I tried to reset my password and it said that it sent the reset email but after 3 hours I still hadn't gotten one. I tried to reset it with my birthday but that says that it is incorrect.

I called my bank but they couldn't do anything with them till they settle on Tuesday.

Then I got an email receipt for the $48.10

Item Number Description Unit Price
1 The 7 Adventures of Sinbad $14.99
2 7 Seconds $9.99
3 Adventures of Johnny Tao $9.99
4 Romeo Must Die $9.99

Subtotal: $44.96
Tax: $3.14
Order Total: $48.10

I checked my bank account again to find a THIRD charge.

877650 POS PREAUTH APL*ITUNES 866-712-7753 CA US 43.80

After that I called and canceled my card immediately. Just image if I had just gotten paid and not noticed it. They would have ticked it away all night till there was no money left.

I had to file a fraud report with my bank then had to file a report with the police station for the bank to 'temporarily provision' the money back into my account.

I had to keep emailing back and forth with Apple support because I couldn’t get back into my account after they re-enabled it.

My email address was either entered or changed by adding a "space" before the beginning of the email address. This was preventing the reset emails and probably why I only got one of the fraud receipts.

So if you can't get in, try putting a space in font.

Oh and there was unpaid order dated June 26, 2010 in the amount of $26.71 that was pending.

All in all, I have probably spent over 15 hours dealing with all of it, including changing the passwords on ALL my online accounts.

Apple really needs to get some preventive measures in place.

My Itunes account was hacked too, for £369 UK Pounds and I have sent Itunes 3 emails thus far with no reply. I feel this is disgusting, I would like to say I will stop using Itunes but how, we need it for i-phones! How is my bank going to be able to investigate this without Itunes contacts getting involved!

APPLE PLEASE SORT THIS OUT!!!! WE NEED TO HAVE CONTACT NUMBERS FOR A HUMAN BEING TO SPEAK TO AND NOT JUST EMAILING VIA THE SITE, AND WE NEED A RESPONSE TO OUR ENQUIRIES!!

can someone tell me how I would proceed in getting my money back if the charges were made to my bank account? I have paypal linked to my itune account and charges were made through my paypal which was ultimately charged to my bank account? please give me some suggestions. thanks

I had five charges show up on my PayPal account this morning (all under $50) totally $175!!!! I was shocked, as I haven't purchased anything from iTunes in over a month myself, and I use it very little. No one else at my house as access to my account (just me and my husband and he is the most computer illiterate person I know, couldn't turn one on, much less use iTunes). I contacted iTunes by email (no phone number available, apparently) and have since filed a dispute with PayPal. The charges appear to be linked to an old billing agreement from 2006 that PP had on file with iTunes. I must have authorized charges when I first signed up with iTunes, but for years I have had a credit card on file, and what purchases I do make always show up on that card, not as a direct debit from PayPal like this morning!

What's really interesting is the charges aren't showing up in my iTunes account, only on PayPal and PayPal has verified that they are definitely coming from the Apple iTunes store, not a third party! Obviously, unless Apple's servers are "glitching", some third party has figured out how to charge through the iTunes store via hacking! I am furious and have found many people online that have all had the same thing happen within the last 24-48 hours to their PayPal accounts!

And this ***** because, even if we don't buy from iTunes, we still need it to use with our iPhones and iPads and I have seen other postings from people who said after filing a dispute with their CC/Bank/PayPal that Apple has disable their accounts, saying they owe a balance due. I am just waiting for that shoe to drop. That will be enough to get me to drop Apple entirely after being with them over 20+ years for everything (computers, phone, iPad, iPod...you name it, I got it). I always though their customer service was better than that. I hope those that had their accounts disabled are able to gain access again, and I darn sure hope it doesn't happen to me!

I immediately changed all my passwords, etc. for Apple and PayPal when this happened. PayPal has been helpful on making sure that this can't happen again, canceling and this obscure "billing agreement" from four years ago, to sever my ties to Apple. But even as I was on the phone with PayPal, one minute EXACTLY, before she canceled my agreement, another charge came through, the fifth in just a couple of hours. God help me if I handn't caught it sooner. Some people have lost even more than that!

Message was edited by: printergirl

My iTunes account was hacked yesterday, they got about $1000 before I realized what was going on. All the transactions were between about $41-49.
Used apple iforgot to get back control of account.
Canceling Paypal agreement with iTunes stopped it, but still need to get this resolved. Sent apple info using their automated system. 48 hrs is tomorrow pm, so we will see what Apple says.

Need to sit down with cc company and report the transactions.
Hate to go back to filling in cc info for every transaction, but definitely spooked.

Subhash Roy, so it sounds like your account with PayPal is tied to a credit card as a back up funding source? Actually, you are probably in a better position than me. Mine came straight out of my PayPal account, not tied to a credit card, so unless PayPal goes to bat for me with Apple, I may be out of luck. 😟 I am not a happy camper here. They tell me they will dispute, but the ball is in Apple's court, so ultimately it is up to Apple whether they will refund or not, and from what others have said Apple has a strict "no refund" policy, which is laughable, since whatever these charges are for aren't even SHOWING UP within my iTunes account at all! So it's not like **I** got something at all!

All my iTunes account shows for recent history is FREE items on the 5th (all these other charges came through on the 8th). The apps it shows are all apps I have had on my iPhone/iPad for a while now, so I am thinking they may just be updates I did recently on those titles. There is nothing showing in my account for any purchases done today, yet PayPal confirms the charges are DEFINITELY from Apple! My last true paid iTunes purchase was back on 07/04/10, for an album, which I actually DID purchase through iTunes. It shows up in my account, but nothing from today is there, so I am not ever sure what whoever was using my account was buying! I bet Apple does let that information loose either!

Update looks like the early indication of a hack was on 8/6 buying several videos, and then the flood of purchases happened after including a few $199.99 applications!!
Have put the transactions in dispute at paypal to start with and we'll see where this goes.

I have an update as well. I had been assuming all along that these purchases were tied to my active, current iTunes account (used with my iPhone and iPad), but was curious why I couldn't see any transaction in my account all day when I logged in.

Got receipts from iTunes this evening, the purchases are tied to a very old account of mine, not accessed for many years, or used by me at ALL in three-four years for anything (not since I got my iPhone)! Last legitimate purchase was "Ave Maria" (the song), by me, in 2007. I remember that even! Until today! What the heck?

How is account access information for an account I don't even remember having, much less logging into, in several years all of the sudden get out there. The receipts I got this evening all have Chinese/Asian type writing on the apps, by developers with Asian names and are for, as best as I can tell, comic book apps, games, etc. I am a 45 year old female, and a own my own business, living in the US. Not exactly a comic book and game kind of person here! Geez...

It is obvious from looking at the receipts that the purchases were made from out of the US! I have never traveled out of the US in my life, I work in the internet industry and am diligent about internet security, both for my customers and for myself, so how, just how, did they get information to basically a "dead" iTunes account!?!?!?!

{quote:title=Subhash Roy wrote:}Update looks like the early indication of a hack was on 8/6 buying several videos, and then the flood of purchases happened after including a few $199.99 applications!! Have put the transactions in dispute at paypal to start with and we'll see where this goes.{quote}

Dang, how much was the total take to your account? I am freaking out over $175 total, with all charges, before I stopped it on mine. $199 for an app, dear God, what app costs $200, that is crazy!

I am curious, to see if this matches my situation, was this billed to your PayPal account or directly to a credit card. I am finding a lot of people that had these billed via a credit agreement on file with PayPal. Apple is saying they implemented security measures to avoid charges to credit cards on file, however people are still having this happen. Are we all being billed via PayPal, which then debits via the credit card on file with them, our bank accounts or our PayPal account, in this go round? If so, whomever is doing this has found a way around iTunes "so called" security measure!

You see, here is the deal: Apple does not care about protecting your accounts just like they don't care that their new iPhone can't make any phone calls. If people are pumping millions of dollars a day into their bank accounts do you really think they care about this piddley stuff. These issues are just pennies to them and most people throw pennies away or stick them in a dark container to sit forever until you get some time to go to the bank and deposit them. Apple is just another big fat corporation which has a unique distiction of loving itself above everything else. You would too if you could take a treasure bath every day.

Clear all your bank info from your iTunes account and change the password regularly. Then start buying your music from Amazon.com or using very small denomination iTunes gift cards that you load periodically so that your financial exposure is reduced.

Good luck in communicating with Apple on the hacked dollar amounts. They will probably credit them once they run you through a bunch of loops

Spot on assessment and recommendations, Zombie-007.

Last step I forgot to mention deauthorize all the computers on the account and then after the passwords are changed, re-authorize them.

Beside the financial issues to unravel, when you have 5 computers + multiple iphones and ipads => painful process.