It seems as though there has been an ever-increasing amount of fraud surrounding the iTunes App Store. Over the past three weeks, our source has received several first-hand accounts of gift card balances disappearing. Some PayPal accounts have been hit with fraudulent charges as well.
There are a number of examples of this type of problem on Apple’s discussion board, and several posts at news sites across the internet, but the stories all seem to indicate that users who funded their accounts with gift cards have seen those balances being depleted with purchases that they did not make.
My first inclination was to assume this was a matter of users having insecure passwords, not having appropriate security on their computers, and so forth – but this seems to go deeper. Most users reported that their passwords were never compromised, suggesting that hackers are finding a way to get in to Apple’s servers directly.
It bothers me on some level that Apple hasn’t made any statements about this matter, and in some sense don’t really seem to be “coming clean” about the issue. You can be assured that Apple is certainly looking into this matter, but that’s of little assurance to the customers that are getting hit with this fraud.
Have you experienced any of these problems? If so, we want to hear from you. Sound off in the comments.