Apple customers report fraudulent iTunes transactions of up to S$7,000; Apple looking into matter

SINGAPORE — Apple is looking into customers' reports of fraudulent purchases made on their iTunes accounts, some up to thousands of dollars. The extent of the problem is unclear, but customers of most major banks here appear to have been hit.

Legal counsel Patricia Choy was hit by fraudulent transactions totalling a whopping S$7,200 on her iTunes account.

The 28-year-old told TODAY on Sunday (July 22) she realised something was wrong only when she received an SMS notification from her bank — the DBS Bank — on July 12 that her credit card had been had been blocked due to suspicious transactions.

She later discovered that 45 transactions, each amounting to S$160.57, had been made on her credit card.

"After about two hours from when I first called, (Apple) called back to inform (me) that they have refunded the amount to my card. In the meantime DBS has replaced the card for me," she said.

Ms Choy was just one of several dozen Apple customers here from various banks who have fallen prey to the latest scam, which was first reported by Channel NewsAsia on Sunday.

It was also due to an SMS from his bank that Maybank card holder Roy Chow found out on June 25 that multiple transactions totalling S$1,049.84 had been charged to his card.

Fortunately, the 37-year-old was also able to successfully dispute the transactions and had the matter resolved within five days. He did not know what the purchases were for.

Where Mr Chow's case differs from Ms Choy is the fact that his affected credit card was never registered with his iTunes account to begin with.

The IT consultant said he was puzzled over how the transactions could have been made without his credit card verification value (CVV), and the only times he had used it online was to purchase flight tickets in January, and a second time in April when he was in Osaka, Japan.

It is currently unclear how the fraudulent transactions took place, nor how many of Apple's customers in Singapore have been affected. Anecdotally, netizens have reported unauthorised charges as low as two digits to values that go up to the thousands like Ms Choy and Mr Chow.

Responding to media queries, an Apple spokesperson said the company was "looking into the matter" and referred TODAY to a support page for customers to report problems with any purchases made on iTunes.

DBS and OCBC Bank confirmed on Sunday that their customers had been affected. DBS did not reveal how many were affected, while OCBC's head of credit cards Vincent Tan said the bank detected unusual transactions on the accounts of 58 cardholders in early July.

"Upon confirmation that these were fraudulent transactions, we deployed the necessary counter-measures and are currently assisting the affected cardholders via the chargeback process," added OCBC's Mr Tan.

A Maybank spokesperson told TODAY on Monday that the bank has received less than 70 cases of unauthorised transactions relating to Apple iTunes purchases, and it has been able to help its customers reverse them.

TODAY has also approached Citibank, Standard Chartered, and HSBC for comments, and is checking with police on the number of police reports made. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY TOH EE MING