I think my iTunes account was hacked?

[autogeneric]

My account too.. this is widespread

Gee, you think this guy is making it up? Well then here's what brought me here:
I got two email receipts for purchases of $50 like this:
Your receipt #216001268675
Billed To:
rachel@xxxx.com
Rachel [my address follows]
Order Number: MGFGYN4J6G
Receipt Date: 04/16/09
Order Total: $50.00
Billed To: PayPal
Description Subtotal
Gift certificate for a $50.00
Subtotal: $50.00
Tax: $0.00
Order Total: $50.00

I have spoken with two apple reps who declare that a) it is not possible that my account was hacked b) there is no way to cancel an itunes order, c) the only way to close my iTunes account is to email itunes and c) all I can do is change my password and call "the issuing bank" to stop the charges from paypal.

They told me to go into my account information, and assumed that it was just a spoof email. I did as they said and found the payment information: PayPal mjdjhm@msn.com

Do I have to say that I don't know anyone at that address and have not used PayPal in about a year and haven't used iTunes in as much time?

What really makes me angry is attitudes like you have been dishing out here - all you self satisfied "experts" who think - as the Apple techs said that it's just not possible and if it is possible it is just not their problem! MY iTUNES ACCOUNT WAS HACKED. I am an older woman, with a baby and breast cancer, I am reeeeeeeeaaaallly far too busy to be farting around with iTunes or paypal or snotty apple reps who think it's not their problem to protect our accounts - and won't even close them!
As if I have the time and money to go deal with the idiots at paypal?

It occurred to me in all this that - it's not my paypal account that got billed. But when Apple starts looking for it's money, and that (bogus) paypal account doesn't pay it, then Apple is going to come to ME for the money because it's a purchase from MY account- and Apple's stance is going to be that its not possible that my account got hacked!

All I can do is post a form - not even having proof I sent the email to iTunes to report this (impossible) hacking.

STOP GIVING POSTERS A HARD TIME ABOUT THIS- ITS TIME TO GET APPLE OFF IT'S BEHIND TO ACTUALLY SERVICE THE ITUNES ACCOUNTS WITH REAL PEOPLE. THEY ARE TAKING REAL MONEY AND COSTING PEOPLE LIKE ME TIME AND MONEY WE CAN NOT SPARE.

I will be going to that IC3 site as well- thank you for that.

I see a crime happening and I can't do anything about it, and I am the one paying for it- and Apple is the one enabling it.

If you don't have a solution for the problem or helpful advice- ****.

Same thing has happened to my account. I have never even purchased a gift certificate from apple in 5 years of purchases. Apple has removed all the posts I posted about this in their forums.

This must be more widespread than they are letting on if they are censoring their own forums now..
Dear Timothy
Your post was removed from Apple Discussions as it contained feedback or feature requests. These areas are intended to address technical issues about Apple products
Here is the response I got from apple

Dear Timothy,

I understand that you are very concerned about two purchases gift cards that were made to your credit card on your account without your permission or knowledge. I most certainly can understand your concerns and worries for this and would be happy to point you in the right direction to have this fixed for you.

Unfortunately, I cannot reverse these charges for you. Your bank will need to communicate with Apple's Fraud investigation department to clear this up and get this refunded for you. I am sorry that I can not be of more assistance to you.

On another note, your account has been disabled from further use at this time. When you are ready and would like to have the account re-enabled, please reply with the billing address listed on the account for us to do so for you.

I sincerely hope that you are able to resolve this matter with the help of your credit card company. I am sorry once again Timothy that I could not be of more assistance to you and am very sorry to hear that this has happened.

Sincerely,

Samantha
iTunes Customer Support

Please Note: I work, Saturday 8-8:30PM, Sunday 12:30-9PM, Monday 1-9:30PM, Thursday 5-9PM, and Saturday 12-8:30PM

 

[RachelZ3]

Same thing has happened to my account. I have never even purchased a gift certificate from apple in 5 years of purchases. Apple has removed all the posts I posted about this in their forums.

This must be more widespread than they are letting on if they are censoring their own forums now..
Dear Timothy
Your post was removed from Apple Discussions as it contained feedback or feature requests. These areas are intended to address technical issues about Apple products
Here is the response I got from apple

Dear Timothy,

I understand that you are very concerned about two purchases gift cards that were made to your credit card on your account without your permission or knowledge. I most certainly can understand your concerns and worries for this and would be happy to point you in the right direction to have this fixed for you.

Unfortunately, I cannot reverse these charges for you. Your bank will need to communicate with Apple's Fraud investigation department to clear this up and get this refunded for you. I am sorry that I can not be of more assistance to you.

On another note, your account has been disabled from further use at this time. When you are ready and would like to have the account re-enabled, please reply with the billing address listed on the account for us to do so for you.

I sincerely hope that you are able to resolve this matter with the help of your credit card company. I am sorry once again Timothy that I could not be of more assistance to you and am very sorry to hear that this has happened.

Sincerely,

Samantha
iTunes Customer Support

Please Note: I work, Saturday 8-8:30PM, Sunday 12:30-9PM, Monday 1-9:30PM, Thursday 5-9PM, and Saturday 12-8:30PM

Wow. How depressing. At least your email was nicer- and much shorter. Mine was pages and pages of off-topic verbiage. I remember when the Apple discussions were like a real message board, uncensored and people could really get great help there. They have never been the same since.

I gifted a song once to my Dad last year, for .99. Neither of us could figure out how to redeem it.

I almost think its funny someone figuring out how to use the abusive self-protection of msn.com/paypal.com/google.com against each other to scam them, but the nauseating part is Apple's complicity and Apple acting like MSN and PayPal- not to mention what will happen if Apple doesn't get paid and comes after us for real money.

At least we'll have a record of our complaint by virtue of these otherwise pointless email responses. I sent my first email reply with returnreciept.com but seems that the Apple customer service people can get around it.

If this ends up messing with my iPhone, I will be also filing a complaint with AT&T.

For those other obnoxious posters, you have to see that I too believe(d) in Apple, I never thought they'd do something like this to it's users. But they are certainly doing it. Time to wake up and smell the rip-off.

Give http://www.ic3.gov/
a try. It's very satisfying.

 

[iuvare]

itunesbb@gmail has struck again...

My case with a twist... somehow they changed the payment information in my account... to this paypal account. I find it almost interesting that they didn't bother to change the address for the receipts- it was the receipts that got me to notice. I would never have known. And the recipient is itunesbb@gmail.com

My account was hacked this morning and 2, $50 electronic itunes cards were sent to "itunesbb@gmail.com." As with the others, the only way I found out was because 2 invoices for 50 bucks were sent to my email address @ 10AM this morning. I notified Amex, had my cards cancelled and notified iTunes support. Terry from itunes support sent me the following:

My name is Terry.

I urge you to contact your financial institution as soon as possible to inquire about canceling the card or account and removing the unauthorized transactions. You should also ask them to launch an investigation into the security of your account. Your bank or credit card company's fraud department should then contact the iTunes Store to resolve this issue. The iTunes Store cannot reverse the charges.

......

I sincerely hope that you are able to resolve this matter with the help of your financial institution. When you are confident the matter is resolved, please return to the Apple Account Information page, click the Edit Payment Information button, and enter your billing information.


A blanket statement that iTunes cannot reverse charges.
Awesome.

Adding insult to injury, iTunes Terry has the nerve to ask me to enter my billing information after I've taken all the steps necessary to resolve the problem. Nice.

 

[RachelZ3]

My account was hacked this morning and 2, $50 electronic itunes cards were sent to "itunesbb@gmail.com." As with the others, the only way I found out was because 2 invoices for 50 bucks were sent to my email address @ 10AM this morning. I notified Amex, had my cards cancelled and notified iTunes support. Terry from itunes support sent me the following:
...

Adding insult to injury, iTunes Terry has the nerve to ask me to enter my billing information after I've taken all the steps necessary to resolve the problem. Nice.

Very well said. Insult to injury.

Now that there's at least 3 of us, perhaps the media would get interested. I'll try the NY Post.

 

[Music_Producer]

Very well said. Insult to injury.

Now that there's at least 3 of us, perhaps the media would get interested. I'll try the NY Post.

There's thousands - I have actually tried to contact Apple through a lawyer - no response since the last 3 weeks.

Apparently Apple does not offer the $200 gift card option anymore - but they do offer up to $50 - and it seems that is the cap on each account. However, these hackers will find any way to exploit this system - in all fairness I understand why iTunes does not want to reverse the charge - because anyone can buy a song on iTunes and then complain that their card was hacked, simply to get free music.

But then again, iTunes does not give the artist this money. I really want to investigate if Apple keeps the money - it's obvious they know what's going on, I strongly suspect that they try to play innocent and at the same time keep all the proceeds from the stolen cards/accounts.

 

[RachelZ3]

in all fairness I understand why iTunes does not want to reverse the charge - because anyone can buy a song on iTunes and then complain that their card was hacked, simply to get free music.

Reversing the charge is one thing, but the lack of any kind of investigation is another. I do not know of any other business that creates and holds accounts for customers that you can not report a transaction and begin an investigation.

In my case, I wasn't even the one paying for it- yet.

In your checking account, if an ATM charge or a check was written that you did not make, you can report it and it would be taken seriously, right? You can dispute a charge on your credit card. If you are a restaurant and find that someone has been charging lobsters to your account, you bring it to the seafood wholesaler, and you look for reciepts, orders, who accepted the order...

Apple is just denying it happens, summarily removing complaints and hiding behind a web wall.

 

[CopperWires]

I can't get my local police involved unless and until someone actually takes MY MONEY, right now they are just using my account as a front for their purchases. The sick part is that iTunes, paypal, msn.com and gmail don't care- especially iTunes, who as you point out, are the problem.

Stolen identity is a crime. If you file a report to the police it will only help matters. There is a cyber crimes division even in a podunk town like mine.

I worked the email channel to get information from iTunes. They will not speak directly to a consumer. They will, however, speak to rep from the CC company, paypal, and the police.

 

[adamshop94]

This happened to me over the weekend. He bought 2 $50 gift cards through my account. Apple couldn't have been less help. My bank canceled my debit card and they're disputing the charges. Unreal.

 

[thedarkstnights]

hacked

Hey same thing happened to me this morning, i havent even gotten a chance to talk to apple yet. But from everyone else on here im going to assume apple is not helping the matter any??

 

[mikeXXXnj]

my account got hacked by itunesbb@gmail.com too. someone should contact gmail about this account too.

what a jerk, i was already overdrawn on my bank account before this jerk decided to hack my account.

 

[Moocher]

My sympathy to all of you who have been screwed. I'm reading this thread and trying to figure out how to prevent problems. Instead of asking questions, I will present some preventative moves and you can tell me/us if those moves would prevent what happened to you.

1. Don't use paypal for an iTunes account.

2. Don't use a debit card for an iTunes account.

3. Only use gift cards to keep a balance in your account, but keep the balance below $50.

From my reading of the thread I think this would prevent some problems, but it seems that the crooks are even bypassing those measures by using real or fake paypal accounts/credit/debit cards to charge items using your account in iTunes. If I understand Rachel's problem, they didn't charge anything to her, they simply used her iTunes account as a vehicle to defraud Apple and paypal or a card issuer.

If the latter is true, there might not be any way to protect ourselves. I have to assume that this method of fraud is likely to bounce back to bite Rachel and others, even it if takes longer than a direct charge to a paypal or card number.

Your thoughts would be appreciated as us normal honest people try to understand the crooks to protect ourselves.

Mooch

 

[mrj205]

1. Don't use paypal for an iTunes account.

2. Don't use a debit card for an iTunes account.

3. Only use gift cards to keep a balance in your account, but keep the balance below $50.

+1. I refuse to use a debit card with any online purchase. Use your CC so you have fraud protection, and enter information when you checkout, rather than storing your info online somewhere, be it PayPal or any other. E fraud happens all the time. You just have to put forth your efforts to keep it from happening to you.

 

[akaelin]

Basicly the same

On Friday there was $1400 missing from my checking account. I checked with my bank and it was ALL from unathorized itunes purchases. There are currently 4 computers authorized on my account; I only authorized 1: the one I'm using now. The deauthorize all computers button that is supposed to be on my account page is NOT THERE. I notifed Apple on Friday when there wire still over 1200 pending downloads. THEY DID NOTHING except tell me they don't do refunds. They didn't even stop the illegal downloads. As we speak, someone is downloading songs from my account (there are 300 left) and I can't do anything about. I changed my password and personal info several times. I did not receive ANY email receipts for itunes credit card transactions. In addition, there are FURTHER pending charges on my account that were racked up after I cancelled my credit card. I WILL NEVER PAY!!!

This same thing just happend to me yesterday but the only diff is that i dont have 1400 in my checking just 33.00 and the charged 63 two my account and forced a 100 dollar over draft on my checking account. I called my bank and the told me to call apple and then apple gave me a web site to go to and i talked to a guy and he said he had to "escalate" my case to a level 2 and i would be getting an email. so i called my bank canceled card and apple terminated my account and now i have to wait i guess i dont have 100 to pay for the over draft and apple better refund me cuz this is a joke i couldn't pay for food from the store to eat cuz of this.

 

[CopperWires]

This same thing just happend to me yesterday but the only diff is that i dont have 1400 in my checking just 33.00 and the charged 63 two my account and forced a 100 dollar over draft on my checking account. I called my bank and the told me to call apple and then apple gave me a web site to go to and i talked to a guy and he said he had to "escalate" my case to a level 2 and i would be getting an email. so i called my bank canceled card and apple terminated my account and now i have to wait i guess i dont have 100 to pay for the over draft and apple better refund me cuz this is a joke i couldn't pay for food from the store to eat cuz of this.

As long as you're dealing with the bank and iTunes I don't think it will be that big of a deal. Paypal was my problem. They wouldn't budge on anything until I got the police involved. My bank/CC company was doing everything they could and iTunes did all they could until they were contacted by an investigator. Your claim investigator should already be in contact with iTunes' people.

 

[akaelin]

..

Well i went to the police department and already filed for ID theft and im going to be getting some of the money back. But apple is still telling me to talk to my bank about my money so my bank said that i will have to file a claim through them and my bank will take it up with them.

 

[CopperWires]

Well i went to the police department and already filed for ID theft and im going to be getting some of the money back. But apple is still telling me to talk to my bank about my money so my bank said that i will have to file a claim through them and my bank will take it up with them.

Yeah you need to file a fraud/id theft case with the bank. I assumed you had done that since you had already contacted the bank and cancelled the account. If you file with the bank, they will assign an investigator. iTunes will talk to the investigator at the bank and the police.

 

[caligurl]

wow.... just wow.... i knew there was a reason i only bought cards for both itunes and xbox live!!

i'm really appalled at apples attitude in all this mess!

 

[Feej]

Well, you can add me to the ever growing list of people that have been hacked or whatever you want to call it.

Same symptoms of unable to enter password on phone, and then the invoice in my email box....

Billed To:

peter.iacono@xxxxx.xxx
Peter Iacono
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx
Sydney, NSW xxxx
Order Number: MGB7VGxxxx
Issue Date: 24/09/09
Order Total: $38.97
Billed To: MasterCard .... xxxx

Item Number Description Unit Price


1 babylearn, v1.0, Seller: mingqiang shi (4+)
Write a Review Report a Problem $12.99
2 draggo, v1.0, Seller: mingqiang shi (4+)
Write a Review Report a Problem $12.99
3 DragEscape, v1.0, Seller: mingming chen (4+)
Write a Review Report a Problem $12.99

Order Total: $38.97

Interesting thing is the apps are all from the same seller and totally unrelated. Is this some sort of apps scam???

They changed my ID, PW, DOB, and even the secret question. Lucky for me I was able to get my PW reset through another email account and removed my CC details.

Emailed Apple and got the same jive as everyone else here:

I understand you are concerned about purchases that were made with your iTunes Store account without your permission or knowledge. I know how alarming it is when you become aware of unexpected charges and I'm so sorry for that. My name is Shandi, and I want you to know, I'll do all I can to provide you the information and the resources you'll need to have this best and most efficiently resolved.

First, I urge you to contact your financial institution as soon as possible to inquire about canceling the card or account and removing the unauthorized transactions. You should also ask them to launch an investigation into the security of your account. Your bank or credit card company's fraud department should then contact the iTunes Store to resolve this issue. The iTunes Store cannot reverse the charges.

etc, etc.....

My concern now is that someone has been into my account and got hold of my CC details and that'll be next.

The scariest thing is that I don't have any idea how they got access to my account, and I'm very particular about my PW's and security.

I'm sure that this is a bigger problem than just the people on here, and before I'm questioned about this being my first post, I found this forum through a google search for "hacked itunes account".

Obviously, Apple don't care though......

 

[Lorenz0]

I sympathise with everyone on here with problems.

Your first point of contact should always be your bank/ card issuer. Not Apple - as far as they are concerned debited an account quite legitimately. You on your own will almost never be able to prove otherwise. I know this because I work in a bank, and I know how the dispute process works. By all means contact Apple to suspend your account etc - but don't expect an immediate refund from them just because you 'didn't do it'

Advice? keep a debit card with no credit facilities/overdraft. Top it up as required and use that for any online purchases. I do that, but then again, I work in a bank and have seen all sorts of weird and wonderful things happen to people's accounts. keeps your (temporary if found in your favour) losses to a minimum.

I'm pretty sure that if the head Node of itunes itself had been hacked, we'd all know about it, as sites like this would have imploded by now...

You may also consider was really your itunes account that was *specifically* hacked, or one of the computers PC/Mac/other that currently has, or has ever had your account details on it. (no, I can't believe I went there either)

To be clear though I'm blaming no-one here, and I'm not jumping up to defend Apple either. I'm just saying my piece

 

[CopperWires]

Accounts are being hijacked. That is the bottom line. Yes at first the debit or whatever method of payment looks legit. The representative that I spoke with at apple confirmed that my account had been accessed by someone else.

Apple prides itself in it's "attack free" interface. Why would they let this get out and damage that reputation? I would want to keep it under wraps too.

 

[agerstone]

Might as well add my account to the growing list. I also hope no one think's i'm trying to 'play' anyone I simply found this thread by entering 'itunes account hacked' into Google.

Mine was actually hacked today and a series of 20 payments all between amounts of £20-£30 have left my account on the 19th & 20th October.

I tried to log into my account but my password wouldn't work (I was at work so I could only try via the iTunes app)

I contacted Apple who were no help at all and asked that I email them, eventually I found someone helpful in customer relations who esculated the problem. I then also emailed Apple myself to report the problem.

I then contacted my bank who have cancelled my card and have raised an investigation into it. They said it looks pretty obvious that it's a fraud case so hopefully it won't be a hassle getting a refund.

Now I wasn't expecting Apple to refund me within minutes, but the fact they don't even have a phone based team for iTunes account fraud etc is astounding. There must be millions of accounts and the lack of proper support is crazy, if they are willing to hold peoples bank details they must be expected to give support as well.

Anyway, I can't even currently change my account password as when I do it comes up with an unexpected error but they can't do anything with my card details now anyway as they've been cancelled.

I hope I see that £450 again!

 

[phoenix1074]

Another Hacked Account

I will now add my tale of woe to this growing list.

My account has been hacked in the same way others has. I suddenly found that my password no longer worked and the "Forgot Password" selection was just displaying a "Sorry" page.

This made me nervous so I went to my internet banking and found 8 separate charges on my Credit Card totaling about $250. I tried to phone Apple to have this fixed only to find, as others have, that there is no phone contact for the iTunes Store. That's great customer service for you.

For now my Credit Card has a block on it while I try to sort this out. From what I am reading here iTunes will more than likely not reverse the charges as I have asked them to so the next step is I will dispute the charges through my bank. How much success have others had using this method?

As others have suggested, I will now use small denomination iTunes gift cards to keep my account going and delete my Credit Card details.

I have to say this is pretty poor form by Apple that a) they won't perform refunds in the light of obvious fraud and b) they have no phone contact to at least resolve urgent security issues such as this.

 

[CopperWires]

There is a phone number but they won't speak with customers. They will only deal with investigators. Get the police involved. This is identity theft. An investigator from your CC company will also be able to contact Apple through the phone number.

 

[ndcwoman]

itunes hacked

My itunes account was hacked into and ~ $480 of music was downloaded. I discovered this in two ways, my credit card company had informed me that there was some suspicious activity on my account and when I went to log in to download, the account refused my password. I had not used the account for about a month and had not changed the password. I proceeded to have the password sent to me email, which is the same as the apple ID. I never received the email message. So I was able to change the password by answering the secret question. Once into my account I saw that there were 167 items available for downloading and that three machines were authorized to use this account. I called my cc and immediately had them cancel my card. They told me they will launch an investigation and that I would not be liable for the charges. Then I tried to contact itunes about my account, and as was indicated in an earlier post, there is no person available to talk about the account. They wanted to do an instant chat , but the chat button never appeared on my screen. I asked to speak to a manager and eventually was hung up on. PS I was talking to a foreigner i could barely understand and who could not speak english very well. I searched all over itunes support to see how I could close out my account (there is no guidance that I could find) and how to deauthorize all the machines( if there are not 5 machines, there is no deauthorization option available). So I wrote to itunes, asked how i could deauthorize the machines and/or close out the account, and in the first email response, they gave me the usual line that itunes cannot refund charges , change your password, contact your cc etc. I replied that I already contacted my cc. I also replied that it appears that everytime I change my password the hacker can circumvent my email, by having it resent to them to my email (how are they able to obtain my email and use it? and circumvent any email to my address?) and get the password again,-which defeats the purpose of changing the password- so I asked again how to deauthorize all the machines linked to my account. Itunes eventually deauthorized all machines at my request. I also created a new email account and password and asked itunes to reply to that email, in which I referenced the hacked account apple id. the itunes support analyst was more helpful than the rep on the phone, however they did whatever they could to discourage me from closing my itunes account. I will open another account, but use only the gift cards to download music. PS the music download was Vietnamese and a English
-Vietnamese dictionary was purchased from itunes with my cc. itunes claims it has a secure site, but makes me wonder if there isn't some asian connection to hacking as mentioned in other posts.

 

[Hermia]

You can add me to the list of bitter and twisted iTuners. My account has been hacked into despite the fact that no one has access to my computer, I never click on links in emails etc and I am very OTT when it comes to computer and credit card security.

Someone bought £300 of songs from iTunes. My credit card company were great and cleared all the charges and sent me a new card. Apple have been less great. It took absolutely ages to get acccess to my account as the hacker had changed my details. I have access, but still cannot use it as there are outstanding charges on my account that have to be paid first. Apple just told me to get the money back from the credit card company, but the charges never went through (Apple customer service obviously do not understand the meaning of the word 'outstanding') as the credit card company were getting suspicious so there is nothing to refund. They have basically told me I need to pay for the hacker's purchases if I want to access my account again! They also said they cannot see evidence that my account was hacked. I went from being someone who spends a few pounds a month on iTunes to someone who spent several hundred pounds in a few hours and changed all my personal details on my account - hmmmmm...!

So, basically my only option is to close my account which means that I cannot update any of my iPhone apps without having to pay for them again. I am not impressed.