Is this email a scam?

Same here, and the same puzzlement. It's a legit Apple email, but the call to action (contact Amex with no actual context) doesn't make sense. I've checked my Apple account and Amex accounts, and there's been no surprise activity. I think its getting triggered by automatic software access (Quicken in my case) or some sort of Points calculator on the Amex side.

So weird, annoying, but harmless.

The emails are real... and annoying. I'm getting them at least every few days lately. If you log in to American Express and go to your transactions and find your monthly iCloud transaction, there's a button to view details, and it opens an Apple-generated receipt. So I think Apple is sending these emails to warn people, "Hey, someone viewed that receipt, if it wasn't you, then someone might have your amex credentials." But in reality, I think this is getting triggered by various integrations/API invocations. Some people in this thread have mentioned QuickBooks, for me I think it might be CreditKarma. Something is probably regularly pulling transaction details and tripping this email.

I’m downloading AMEX data daily with Quicken. This happens every time there is an Apple Pay transaction in my AMEX data.

So it is definitely NOT a scam.

But, why did this suddenly start happening?

I don’t think we’ll get an answer from either Apple or AMEX, just mutual finger pointing.

If anyone has an idea how to track this down, please share with the community :-)

Ohhhh it's Credit Karma. I opened a new card w/ Amex and looked at my transaction details on the Amex app once. Ever since then I've been getting this email every time I go to CK. I've been waiting for a paid off loan to drop off, so I've been checking CK nearly every morning. Like clockwork, pretty soon after I look at my CK account, the email pops up. Thank you this was driving me crazy. Now to figure out how to shut it off.....

etienne104 wrote:

Why is this the top ranking response when it’s wrong??

i understand there’s a lot of scam going around, but this specific email isn’t.

You can downvote the reply, if enough people do, it may get removed as the Top Ranking Reply.

Yes, it seems the email is triggered when certain financial software such as Quicken accesses the Amex (and presumably other card's transaction history) which triggers a pull from Apple's platform for the purchase history info that then causes this email to be sent.

It appears to be a valid email indicating the above has happened.

This definitely seems to be the correct answer - Quicken and/or other financial software. All the links in the email are to Apple addresses and there's no request to click on a link or anything, so it's unlikely to be phishing. I use financial software and tried disabling the update feature for a day and didn't get the email from Apple that day, so it tracks.

I use Quicken religiously and update (pull transactions from all of my accounts) every morning. I then am pelted with these emails.

If these are legitimately coming from Apple then I hope there are thousands of users telling them how annoying it is. But, perhaps it's a requirement related to FCRA and, if so, put in place by Apple legal counsel.

If these are not legitimate, then I don't see the purpose. There are no links in the email which would serve to lead the recipient to a bad actor's website.