Random Apple Pay Charges Affecting iPhone Users in Hungary

[coolfactor]

They charged me 30x in 30 minutes. All I can see is ‘Apple’ in my bank history and there is not a single receipt in Apple purchase history. It’s around 200usd.
It’s not just the money, I was sure that some hacker did this with me, I was arguing for hours with my bank representative, it was a really bad experience.

There should have been no arguing at all. 30x in 30 minutes is definitely cause for concern by card processors. Most, if not all, thresholds would have caught that immediately.

Looking forwarding to learning what's behind this. Sounds more and more like a hacking incident.

 

[coolfactor]

$1500 in unauthorized charges is more than just a bug. That would basically wipe out my bank account

Same. And when other charges starting failing, the fees would start piling up. My insurance provider would charge my credit card and when that didn't go through, they'd charge me a $45 "bounce fee" ... for a credit card! Totally ridiculous! I fired them.

 

[Octavius8]

Who is making the charges?. Apple?, the mob?. I mean, under what name or concept does the charges appear?.

 

[Cervisia]

Who is making the charges?. Apple?, the mob?. I mean, under what name or concept does the charges appear?.

Same as the Apple Music/iCloiud charges. I've linked the statement of the Banking Association earlier:

"Based on the information available so far, the transactions concerned relate exclusively to past or current subscriptions or purchases with erroneous technical repetition. Purchases or cash withdrawal transactions on physical terminals are not affected.
According to Apple, there are no indications of misuse, no misuse of customer data, no data has been compromised. Apple is accepting related customer inquiries.
Based on their feedback, Apple is in the process of refunding the amounts incorrectly charged due to a technical problem. "

 

[arc of the universe]

I have a similar issue. An unrecognized charge on my Apple Wallet (iphone & ipad), but not showing up in my card issuer (AMEX Germany). The “purchase” was done in Brazil where I am at the moment. I talked to Apple and they couldn’t tell me where this notification came from. I thought Apple engineers were more competent. Disclaimer: I haven’t used the credit card (apple pay) in Brazil.

this would be the first case EVER of GPS being used to authorise any financial transaction.
im assuming you needed to turn off GPS immediately.

what a joke.

 

[forced-to-have-a-username]

They better fix that quick. 1.5k is an average salary there. So someone living paycheck to paycheck right now is in big trouble.

 

[Ethosik]

Yes, thank you. The bank is clearly not talking about Apple Pay. I’d forgive some random non-tech journalist for not understanding the difference, but I’m surprised at Macrumors.

The App Store making erroneous charges is bad, but a merchant accidentally charging people again with a card on file is not unheard of. It’s bad, but it happens occasionally.

A payment system like Apple Pay making erroneous or duplicate transactions is a much bigger deal.

I remember I once tried to cancel a service and I got charged $150,000. Thankfully that was way over my limit so it didn’t go through. But made me realize what a good decision it was to cancel if their system did that!

 

[.wojtek]

thank god 3rd party payments are locked for the sake of reliability

I don't know if sarcasm or not xD

let's flip this on the head - if 3rd parties were allowed maybe less people would be affected because they wouldn't be forced to use one and only faulty service ?

 

[apr]

Just received official statement from my bank (Erste), that they won't wait for Apple to solve this. The bank will start recharging all false transaction, beginning on Friday 12:00PM CET.
This statement clearly indicates that Apple doesn't care at all about a problem, and refused to make any recharges.

OTP (Hungary biggest bank) has a totally different statement: they doesn't care about your problem, they recommend you to "contact" Apple for a recharge. What a joke!
OTP bank changed its statement: the Hungarian bank association work with apple and with apple's external partner to resolve the issue. They only recommend to contact apple support, if you has some question about these "purchases" (this recommendation makes zero sense for me)

(EDIT: Tried to contact apple to request a refund, interested how this process works. It is pointless, you can only ask for a refund for items in your order history. But these false transactions are not in the order history!)

 

[Cervisia]

I don't know if sarcasm or not xD

let's flip this on the head - if 3rd parties were allowed maybe less people would be affected because they wouldn't be forced to use one and only faulty service ?

This is an App Store issue, not Apple Pay.

 

[Swissfashion]

CHF. Is that Swiss?

Yes.

 

[Swissfashion]

If they don't appear in Apple's purchase history then it means the card was used outside of the Apple Pay mechanism.

As the actual issue seems to be nothing to do with Apple Pay anyway, and more an issue with App Store subscriptions being taken in error, I would guess your issues are elsewhere.

The digital goods were from Apple, but they don’t appear in my purchase history. No way to inform Apple of this, as the purchases only appear on my credit card. I filled out a fraud declaration and it is pending at the credit card company.

 

[apr]

Transactions are form "APPLE.COM/BILL CORK". So the card was "used" by Apple. We cannot request a refund, because there is no entry in the purchase history for these false transactions, no bills, nothing. Even a live operator cannot fix this.

In the latest bank statements (as of 28 Jun) Apple continues to making the false charges, it seems they've not yet fixed the problem.

 

[ExxonVS]

According to some redditers, there were mistaken transactions again on 28th. So the problem persists? 😳

 

[whrage]

According to some redditers, there were mistaken transactions again on 28th. So the problem persists? 😳

Yes unfortunately.

 

[komuh]

Apple seems like they just try to lose most of the European customers, considering China new policy is trying to push even more into inside consumption Apple should be careful about losing goodwill with their second biggest market.

 

[dombi]

Apple charged my account two days ago.

They sent me no invoice.
There is nothing about the charges in my purchase history.

Is this the same "Can't innovate my ass" company?

If they know about the issue, how come they are quiet about it?
After two days??? How is this possible?
What happened to our customers/users are the most important?

I am the one trying to call Apple... because of their mistake.
I've been on hold for 27 minutes... still waiting.

Unacceptable.

 

[adrianlondon]

Remember when Apple locked loads of people's accounts? They didn't comment on that, either.

Apple users are being locked out of their Apple IDs with no explanation - 9to5Mac

There appears to be an increasingly widespread Apple ID outage of some sort impacting users tonight. A number of people...

9to5mac.com

Apple ID Accounts Logging Out Users and Requiring Password Reset

There are widespread reports of Apple users being locked out of their Apple ID overnight for no apparent reason, requiring a password reset before they can log in again. Users say the sudden inexplicable Apple ID sign-out is occurring across multiple devices. When they attempt to sign in...

forums.macrumors.com

Difficult to fully trust a company that doesn't acknowledge serious issues.

 

[.wojtek]

This is an App Store issue, not Apple Pay.

There is also push to allow alternative AppStores ;-)

 

[Swissfashion]

The digital goods were from Apple, but they don’t appear in my purchase history. No way to inform Apple of this, as the purchases only appear on my credit card. I filled out a fraud declaration and it is pending at the credit card company.

Clarified with Apple (via support chat). Apparently a fraudulent app/developer called STEPN used my credit card number to bill me repeatedly. (I've never heard of STEPN). The developer account has been suspended by Apple (say they). The credit card company already reimbursed me.

 

[dombi]

Apple charged my account two days ago.

They sent me no invoice.
There is nothing about the charges in my purchase history.

Is this the same "Can't innovate my ass" company?

If they know about the issue, how come they are quiet about it?
After two days??? How is this possible?
What happened to our customers/users are the most important?

I am the one trying to call Apple... because of their mistake.
I've been on hold for 27 minutes... still waiting.

Unacceptable.

UPDATE: After being on hold for 1 HOUR 22 MINUTES, I've been able to talk to an Apple Rep.

They confirmed that over the phone that they know nothing.
They don't see the charges in the system.
Thus they cannot do anything about it.

They cannot communicate anything to the customers.
They think that the users will be reimbursed.
But they don't know how long the process will take.

They told me to write to Apple.com/feedback... thanks...
Or call my bank... which has nothing do do with these charges.

This whole thing is absolutely ridiculous.

Ridiculous that Apple is not officially acknowledging the issue to its users.
That they have not put out an official statement.
That they have no clue how much they charged.
That they have no record of these charges.
I imagine that many users might not even be aware of these charges.

 

[adrianlondon]

It's weird that the charges appear to come from Apple, but they "don't see the charges in the system".

Good luck getting to the bottom of it. Please (everyone!) keep us updated if you find out anything.

 

[UliBaer]

Well, could be their "security by obscurity" bites themself?
Possibly a hacker found a way to gather the credit card data from app store and fakes legit app store transactions, hiding them from the app store itself?

 

[Lioness~]

This is Apple when they don't know what to answer.
They can't say we don't know. So they put people on hold until they give up.
I've been there....

When Apple DO know, things usually moves fast.

 

[apr]

I got a chargeback directly from my bank as promised (Erste).

According to the news, the problem still ongoing, many reports continous fake apple charges, now both the goverment and the national bank try to calm down the people.

Still zero response and help from Apple!