This is normal? Payment & $50 charge after clicking on appnebula.co email 🤔

I suspect you were directed to their website through a Social Media post where they were paid to refer you. Once you clicked to the link get to their website they get you to take a quiz or give you a reading for a small price (usually $1), and that is actually a free trial for a subscription you need to cancel to avoid charges. That is what triggers the charge after the trial period and it has nothing to do with clicking any email link. None of this involves Apple at all and it makes not difference if you downloaded the app or not, you are still going to get charged if you do not cancel. The problem is that the website does not make it clear that you signed up for a subscription and need to cancel the free trial. They make that information available in the Terms of Use, but no one reads those.

The courts have required Apple to allow developers to manage subscriptions and you have always had the ability to pay for any service yourself through any website. As with any fraudulent purchase, the solution is the same, first you contact the merchant and if unresolved, then you dispute the charge with the card being billed. If you want to report the website as a scam/fraud, you can do that here:

https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

That honestly sounds super off. I don’t think just clicking on an email link should ever cause a charge - even if it’s linked to an account. No confirmation, no warning? I’d be contacting Apple directly about that if it happened to me

malikastandgard wrote:

It kind of defeats the whole point of having purchase protections through the App Store 😕

sonicxs wrote:

I’d be contacting Apple directly about that

Apple has been trying to prevent this problem. But governments and courts in the US and Europe are forcing Apple to permit these kinds of practices. It's only going to get worse, and there's nothing Apple can do to stop it.

That’s definitely odd… if the payment doesn’t go through Apple, I’d be very cautious

It kind of defeats the whole point of having purchase protections through the App Store 😕

Same thing happened to me a while back. I didn’t even realize it until I saw the charge in my bank feed. Thought I misclicked or something, but reading this makes me wonder if there’s a pattern

Thanks for posting this. I was about to try one of their "special offers" I saw in an ad, but now I’ll hold off. That $50 email thing sounds sketchy even if it’s unintentional.

Honestly, I don’t think email links should ever be able to trigger payments. Like, how is that even possible?

Is it tied to some auto-confirm mechanism or something??