Users of Apple’s iTunes services should keep a close eye on PayPal and credit card statements for fraudulent iTunes charges.
For more than a year now, scammers have been racking up unauthorized charges on iTunes accounts, leaving Apple’s customers to clean up the mess.
Tech Crunch and the San Jose Mercury News report that the scam is ongoing — often draining hundreds of dollars or more from accounts — but consumers have been complaining about the problem since at least early 2009.
The number of people being hit by the fraudsters now seems to be growing, however.
“My iTunes account just got hacked and someone made about $700 worth of purchases,” one Facebook poster wrote Monday. “I contacted Paypal (who was awesome btw, refunded all) and they said Apple has gotten so many attacks since June, they can barely keep up with reporting them all!”
That scam victim, Layne Harris, told this reporter he has no idea how his account was compromised.
PayPal, which is often processing the unauthorized charges, confirmed Monday that customers are being reimbursed for the fraud.
The fraud “is happening on the iTunes side,” a PayPal spokeswoman said via e-mail. She referred further questions about the scam to Apple.
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