itunes account hacked

When my iTunes account was compromised, I started buying music from Amazon too and it is no hassle. Look for the "Amazon MP3 downloader" app within their MP3 store and download and install that first. You don't have to do this, but it makes life easier. There is then a setting in this app which will automatically add anything you download from Amazon to iTunes.

Couldn't be simpler.

I have had very good service from Amazon in the past: once I ordered some books and they didn't arrive for a long time, so I e-mailed Amazon and they just took my word for it and immediately shipped new copies out to me, no questions asked. This second shipment arrived, then finally, very late, the first shipment arrived, which I then sent back to Amazon. Their customer service has always been excellent in my experience, whereas my experience trying to deal with iTunes support was atrocious. So, it was a no brainer for me to switch to Amazon for my music, wish I'd done it long ago.

Yes, Amazon is great for music downloads. I switched to buying music from them exclusively for three reasons:

1. They were one of the first to offer DRM free (Digital Rights Management) pure MP3 files via legitimate purchase and download. What this means is that the file you get is the standard MP3 format and can be played on ANY MP3 device (everything in the marketplace now). That also means I can burn them onto CD's and play them on just about any cd player on the market. So when you are stuck on a road trip with someone and you are in their car you can whip out a CD with like 250 songs on it and play then in their car radio. Or if you rent a car for a vacation or business trip. You can not do that with those proprietary files that Apple gives you. You are stuck playing them in your Apple device. You can make an audio CD of them though, but it would only be like 20 audio songs rather than close to 250 digital MP3 songs. So anyways the short on this is that when my Droid X comes in to replace my iPhone I can just copy all those Amazon purchased songs right over to my new player. I won't be able to transfer the songs I bought from iTunes, if I want them I will have to re-purchase them from iTunes or pay Apple to "convert them" hahahha. Apple probably offers DRM free songs now too, but once I went over to Amazon I never looked back. I dint want to pay for conversion of stuff I already bought.

The Amazon downloader seemlessly puts the song right into your iTunes application.

2. Amazon's songs are ripped at a higher bit rate. Some can argue the bit rate quality between Apple files and MP3 files, but to me the Amazon songs sound a lot better.

3. I have found much more rare and niche songs at Amazon versus iTunes. There are some exclusives that iTunes gets but those are more popular artists and more of a marketing thing

I generally use Amazon more than iTunes.

You can make an audio CD of them though, but it would only be like 20 audio songs rather than close to 250 digital MP3 songs.

In iTunes with DRM songs, you could then use this audio CD to convert to MP3 and make the same MP3 CD with 250 songs. Or now that everything has no DRM, just directly create an MP3 version of the songs then burn these 250 songs to an MP3 CD.

Amazon's songs are ripped at a higher bit rate.

Actually they are 256 kbps VBR, which is the average bit rate.
The bit rate set for VBR in iTunes is the minimum it will go so there is actually more data for a song.

Chris CA wrote:
Actually they are 256 kbps VBR, which is the average bit rate.
The bit rate set for VBR in iTunes is the minimum it will go so there is actually more data for a song.

Does this mean that encoding at 320 VBR in iTunes is useless, since 320 would be the minimum and maximum producing a constant bit rate file?

Does this mean that encoding at 320 VBR in iTunes is useless

No.

since 320 would be the minimum and maximum producing a constant bit rate file?

The majority of the file would be 320 kbps.

I have to add these two things as well:

1. Most all songs on Amazon.com are $0.99 all the time vs. $1.29 on iTunes.
2. Amazon has some very nice album deals they run occasionally.

For instance right now all of the following I list below are $5.00 for full albums. All the albums below have single tracks at $0.99 at Amazon all the time while iTunes is $1.29 for each single track. Granted Amazon runs this type of "Album Sale" monthly. They usually pick 100 albums a month and run them for $5 a pop. Point here is that it pays to compare and look at what is going on in the marketplace vs. letting Apple walk you through their restrictions and money pit.

Full album of
Steve Miller Band - Greatest Hits, Amazon $5 / iTunes $7.99
30 Seconds to Mars - This Is War, Amazon $5 / iTunes $9.99
Radiohead - Ok Computer, Amazon $5 / iTunes $7.99
Red Hot Chili Peppers - What Hits?, Amazon $5 / iTunes $12.99 !!!!
Greatful Dead - Go To Heaven, Amazon $5 / iTunes (not available) !!!!
Alex Chilton - Bach's Bottom, Amazon $5 / iTunes $9.99

Note the major Greatful Dead omission from iTunes. You can't get their music there. But you can get tons of it on Amazon. There are lots of Independent artists that release on Amazon and not on iTunes.

So, there you have it. And what does this have to do with your account and security and hacking? Well, does Apple care about the security of your account or do they really just want to lock everyone into their little store/devices and take their money any way they can? You decide.

On August 24 my itunes account was hacked. $500.00 worth of apps were purchased using my paypal account. When I called Paypal they knew immediately what had occured since the rep who helped me had been helping others all day with the same problem. To date I still have not gotten a response from I-Tunes. I access my I-Tunes thru my I-Phone, how could this happen???? My bank and paypal were awesome. I-Tunes, not so much. Time to switch to Amazon for my downloads

Add me to the list.
Only had a few $ left on my gift card so I lost about CAD$6.
The 2 apps bought were made by the same author (QIAN ZHAO)
"Iching horary" and "Sunlight and sunrise"

Those apps seem to be pretty terrible so I would be tempted to say that the hacker is the author himself.

Anyway anyone has an idea about how our accounts were hacked ?

I am a victim as of this morning as well. Got an email while enjoying my morning coffee, saying I'd bought three apps, totalling about $24. Luckily, I did not have a PayPal or Credit Card account hooked to my iTunes account, so the loss was limited to my existing balance from a gift card I'd received many months ago.

In my case the apps were:

1 Plants vs. Zombies HD, v1.0.2, Seller: PopCap Games, Inc. (iDP) (9+) $9.99
2 Dodonpachi Resurrection, v1.0.1, Seller: CAVE Co., Ltd. (4+) $8.99
3 Knight's Rush, v1.0.1, Seller: Chillingo Ltd (9+) $2.99

Neither I nor anyone in my family own an iPad, iPhone or Gen3+ iPod Touch.

I immediately changed my password and attempted to contact iTunes but no idea how to really do so? I issued "Report a Problem" on all three explaining that I did not order nor receive the items and that my account had apparently been compromised. Not sure if there's anything more to do at this point.

Possible interesting information.
My account was "hacked" exactly one week after my first app purchase.
I'm from Canada so I couldn't previously buy any app using store funds.
August 23 I discovered that Apple had changed the rules so we could now use them to buy apps. So I bought an app that day. One week later my account was used to buy the 2 apps mentioned in my previous post.

Coincidence?
Note that
1.I bought the app directly from the Ipod.
2.I downloaded many free apps before so it was not the first time that I entered my password on my ipod.

Message was edited by: sfpx

In my case, the last time and app was purchased (from the same GiftCard credit) was in December 2009. Lots of apps updated since then (which requires password entry like a purchase) but no purchases.

Device using this account is a 1st Gen iPod Touch (old skool!) running iOS3.

I'm another iTunes user from Canada. A few of months ago I noticed about $250.00 worth of charges to my credit card for iTunes store purchases I did not make. I checked my list of purchases on iTunes and only my legitimate charges were listed, none of the extra charges appeared on the iTunes store list of purchases. I contacted Apple and they told me to contact my bank. I disputed the charges with my bank but paid my account in full. A couple of months later my bank reimbursed me for those charges. I have not used the itunes store since but today I tried to input an iTunes gift card and found my account had been disabled. And now the fun will probably start as I try to resolve this issue. I must admit I feel better knowing I'm not the only one experiencing this problem. Apple definitely has a problem that appears to be continuing. If I am able to load my gift card I wonder if I'll get full value from it before it's hacked. Amazon sounds like a better option to me also.

So what should I do seeing this $1.00 charge on my account?

DEBIT AUTHORIZATION Sep06 01:09a xxxx
AT 01:09 APL*ITUNES 866-712-7753 CA

I'm pretty sure that I didn't do this, as this debit card is not even linked to my itunes account, and my itunes purchase history doesn't show any charges here on this date. I filed a dispute with my debit card company, but will feel really silly if it's something I've overlooked. I just acquired a used ipod touch which might be relevant to this discussion. Perhaps I was charged for something that I didn't know I would be charged for?

Sounds like you have another iTunes account with this debit card you forgot about.

Just throwing this out there, but on September 6th I received a receipt saying I purchased 'Sunrise and Sunset' by QIAN ZHAO. The only Apple product I own is a 120GB iPod Classic. I don't think that will work for me.

Someone figure out who this ********* is. I'm just glad I didn't have my debit card tied to my account.