Apple being sued for refusing to help iTunes gift card scam victims

[avg123]

Summary

Apple is being sued for allegedly refusing to help those who have fallen victim to a iTunes gift card scam. An 11-count class action lawsuit has been filed against the company.

Apple is accused of lying when it says that there is no way to trace or refund the value of the cards 

 

Quotes

Quote

The lawsuit says that Apple tells scam victims there is nothing that can be done once the money has been spent, but argues that this isn’t true. In fact, Apple holds 100% of the funds for a period of 4-6 weeks, between the apps being purchased and Apple paying the developer. During this time, the company is in a position to refund 100% of the card value.

 

My thoughts

I really hate these scammers who target the elderly and Apple should make changes to how these cards work to stop any such scams. If it takes a lawsuit to make it happen, so be it. It is not just an Apple problem, these scammers use all kinds of gift cards

 

Sources

https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/20/itunes-gift-card-scam/

[IronSoldier]

But how do you prove the scam was a real scam and people don't just then scam their friends to then scam apple? 

 

Tough luck people. Live and learn from your mistakes. 

[Rune]

People should learn to not be stupid. The FBI isn't going to call you and ask for payment in itunes cards.

I'm with apple on this one.

[Mad153]

1 minute ago, Rune said:

People should learn to not be stupid

Many of the targets of these scams are very old people with no technical knowledge whatsoever. Sprinkle in the fact that some might have more problems (dementia, depression) ....

[RejZoR]

And how is that Apple's problem? Buying already consumed Apple gift card from eBay and then suing Apple for it or something. How does that even work?

[Rune]

1 minute ago, Mad153 said:

Many of the targets of these scams are very old people with no technical knowledge whatsoever. Sprinkle in the fact that some might have more problems (dementia, depression) ....

Age is not an excuse for ignorance. Anyone can be sick at any time. I have no pity for these people.

[spartaman64]

4 minutes ago, Rune said:

People should learn to not be stupid. The FBI isn't going to call you and ask for payment in itunes cards.

I'm with apple on this one.

im going to sue satoshi because i thought the IRS was asking me to pay my taxes in bitcoin

[kelvinhall05]

Haha Apple bad, amiright? LOL imagine Apple not refunding the people who fall for these obvious scams and should just learn from their mistakes! What a BAD COMPANY. Apple bad, please mark my reply as "funny"!

[lewdicrous]

Send me 5 iTunes gift cards or else I'm gonna tell Google, Microsoft, the FBI, the IRS, Apple and your private bank!

[Ceetch]

I agree that gift cards should follow the same anti-fraud steps that most banks and credit cards employ.  If your gift card is stolen, hacked, or scammed without your consent, then the vendor of the card should be responsible for returning the money to you.  It should also be their responsibility to pursue the scammers and thieves that took the funds in the first place.

Yes, it's also somewhat the end user's fault for falling into the scam in the first place, but that just means better security measures need to be put in place to prevent the scams in the first place.  There should of course be a limit per user for "bailouts", so that you can't just scam the system yourself by repeatedly "falling for the scam" and getting refunds over and over.

[gloop]

Sorry, what?

 

Ok, gimme 10 minutes. Gonna go buy gift cards on Ebay in bulk and then sure Apple.

 

Seriously though, this is just getting worse and worse. So now they have to account for braindead customers who wouldn't identify a scam even if it was dancing right in front of them?

[Brooksie359]

If I remember correctly aren't these scams done by getting the victim to buy the gift cards and then the scammer get the money off of the gift cards? If that is the case I don't see why they couldn't just refund the money and cancel the transaction of the scammer. I also think people should realize that although most younger people wouldn't fall for this the older generations will and it happens often unfortunately. Also sometimes the scams aren't as obvious as one would think and older people who aren't as tech literate are more susceptible to it. I have watched a twitch streamer who messes with these scammers and honestly I can see how an older person could fall for the scams. 

[Spotty]

Quote

With store cards, the scammers usually buy high-value products like laptops and smartphones, which are then sold. iTunes gift card scams usually work in a slightly different way, typically being used to buy paid apps owned by the scammers, so they receive 70% of the money when paid by Apple.

Interesting. I was under the impression that the gift cards were just sold at less than their value. If the scammers are selling the cards before Apple can cancel them then the scammers still get their money.

Maybe it's a mix of both depending on the scammers?

 

In theory if the scammers are using the gift cards to purchase their own fake apps then there's probably not many legitimate customers buying those apps and it should be easy for Apple to identify which apps are being purchased almost exclusively by gift cards that are later reported as being lost in scams, and then Apple could shut down those apps and ban the developers from the app store...

But I guess most people scammed aren't reporting it.

 

 

Other than "tough luck, just don't get scammed" I'm interested to hear what other suggestions people have to solve the problem.

[Guest]

I understand why they chose Apple.

If you get Apple to move, the rest will too.

Not a bad tactic.

[Guest]

It’s not really Apple’s fault, but if this gets the companies who have gift cards (MA, Amazon etc) to look at this further, because people are stupid and fall for these scams. 
 

However, if you don’t know it’s a scam, and you don’t because you fell for it, how can you alert the authorities to cancel the gift cards? Moreover, how would these gift cards be any different to ones people buy?

 

Finally, who pays for apps these days?

[Curufinwe_wins]

Look, when any credit card company can do this, Apple sure as hell can as well. I'm tired of people holding them to the lowest possible standard and constantly making excuses for just being assholes.

[DrMacintosh]

28 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Look, when any credit card company can do this, Apple sure as hell can as well.

Yeah, except the difference is someone didn’t steal your credit card and make a purchase. You made a purchase. Just because that purchase was for a scam doesn’t mean that’s suddenly Apples problem. 

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, Rune said:

People should learn to not be stupid. The FBI isn't going to call you and ask for payment in itunes cards.

I'm with apple on this one.

They have historically not done that. There is a very old saying “there’s a sucker born every minute”.  The scammers are parasites.  Apple apparently did not tell the truth about the safety of the product they sold.

[Bombastinator]

25 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Yeah, except the difference is someone didn’t steal your credit card and make a purchase. You made a purchase. Just because that purchase was for a scam doesn’t mean that’s suddenly Apples problem. 

Skips a step.  The purchasers fell for the scam because the cards shouldn’t have been transferable according to Apple which apparently wasn’t true.  

[DrMacintosh]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

The purchasers fell for the scam 

And that’s all that matters. Don’t buy gift cards on eBay. It’ll never end well. 

[mr moose]

33 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Yeah, except the difference is someone didn’t steal your credit card and make a purchase. You made a purchase. Just because that purchase was for a scam doesn’t mean that’s suddenly Apples problem. 

Both visa and master card protect you from purchases you make that go wrong.  That was the point,  most major cc companies track, reverse, or at the very least make that information available when fraud has been committed.  In this instance apple have claimed they can;t even do that.  Which is an outright lie.

 

I am not saying apple should be responsible for consumers bad choices, but they should be responsible for the services they provide, and not providing the minimum services whilst lying about it is absolutely abhorrent.

[mr moose]

The sad thing in this whole debacle is that apple knows which accounts received and spent itunes cards that were part of a fraud transaction and are refusing to do anything about it claiming they can't.  Bollocks to that,  if they offer a financial service (which store cards are) then they need to provide the same tracking and protections that go with any financial service.

[captain_to_fire]

1 hour ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Look, when any credit card company can do this, Apple sure as hell can as well. I'm tired of people holding them to the lowest possible standard and constantly making excuses for just being assholes.

Apple is not obligated to do so. For one, they’re not a financial institution like Visa or MasterCard or a bank with depositor’s insurance. 

Edited July 20, 2020 by captain_to_fire

[SpaceGhostC2C]

4 hours ago, gloop said:

So now they have to account for braindead customers who wouldn't identify a scam even if it was dancing right in front of them?

Well, that's a big chunk of what getting into the means of payment / payment processing business entails.

 

I haven't looked into the details of this lawsuit, though, so don't take that as support for this particular claim.

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Apple is not obligated to do so. For one, they’re not a financial institution. 

Yes they are.  When they offer a method of payment and hold an account balance on your behalf they are exactly that.  

 

https://www.apple.com/au/financing/