ITunes Apple Unjustifiable Fraudulence Internet
So I was contacted by a third party Government Grant Department. They informed me they did a study of my area and I qualify for a $8,000 grant. They said they spoke with my accountant and know that I bank with a certain bank. I told them I want interested. Lone and behold 3 hours later there was a $230 charge from iTunes. So I called my bank, disputed the transaction. I then called Apple and asked for a refund. Apple says they're not responsible, even though it was purchased through there website. I asked since it was my cc that purchased the gift card, release to me the information on how or where the gift card was used.
They declined on releasing any information to me (even though it's my account) and told me I have to file a police report. So that's what I did. I've contacted Apple and gave them the report number and asked about the $230 refund, they said no can do .... So they couldn't stop these people from accessing my account, getting all my financial info, buying products, and using the gift card. But they made sure I knew nothing about nothing. Great people HuH !!!! So now that I went crazy cancelling all my credit cards, changing my phone, switching accounts, updating new info for transactions and so on, Apple ID happy to have a$230 notch in their belt.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Robert
Irvine,California,
USA
You are right...
#2Consumer Comment
Sun, April 10, 2016
This is an unjustifiable fraud. But unfortunatly Apple has nothing to do with it and has no responsibility to "make it right", if they do..great but if they don't it is not a RipOff. You basically got "phished" by a scammer who used basic information to get you to trust them and basically part you from your money.
This is not meant to "Knock you when you are down", but hopefully explain how you got scammed and to keep you from doing this again. Because there are hundreds of different ways this could happen and you need to know the basics of how to recongnize them.
First off you need to ask yourself why would your "accountant" give your name and bank information to some random third party. Worse is that your accountant didn't inform you or get your permission. The answer is of course it didn't happen this scammer somehow found out you used this person and had basic information about your bank information. If that really happened, you need to get a new accountant because they are not very secure with your private information. At the very least if someone ever says that they got your information from someone else the first thing you need to do is verify that they actually did by contacting that person.
But how did they acccess your iTunes account? Did you provide this information to them? Why would a "Grant" company need access to your iTunes account? Did they just guess your account information? If so you must have a very weak password and probably should go about changing that immediatly.
You NEVER give anyone you don't personally know access to any personal information, especially if they are contacting you out of the blue. Also, as an off-chute you never pay any legitimate business with Gift Cards, Money Orders, or things such as Western Union Moneygrams. If they don't accept credit cards...walk away. (f they give an excuse that their credit card machine is broken...tell them to contact you when it is working again. Oh, and NEVER..NEVER..NEVER accept a check with instructions to send someone else money back.
The reason Apple isn't giving you any information about the usage is because you are the account holder and are supposed to know what you purchased. For all they know YOU are the scammer trying to get information.
By the way even if they did tell you everything about the person who got the card and even what they did, the chances of you being able to do anything about it would be zero. Because this scammer is most likely in a foreign country and/or used 100% FAKE information with that as well. Just be lucky you were only taken for $230, scams like this have taken people for thousands of dollars.