HACKED!

[John Shields]

Ugh. I utterly hate computers. I called home from work to get a surprise. My wife checked our bank account and much to our enjoyment, we were negative $1,000+. Apparently someone hacked my iTunes account (which I don't even have installed on this computer), and managed to download over 800 songs, apps, games, etc from the store.

The purchases made went through my attached PayPal account, which in turn pulled funds from my attached bank account. Needless to say I learned a few valuable lessons.

1. NEVER EVER link bank accounts or credit cards to ANY store or application.
2. Use ONLY a pre-paid card and manage the card for purchases made online.
3. Change and monitor passwords for websites constantly. I now have a different password for every website I visit.

I'd pay a hefty sum just to find out exactly where these orders originated from and visit this person. What kills me is that the music wasn't even good. I hadn't even heard of most of them (some being Mexican and Chinese).

So user beware if you have iTunes I would look into removing your financial information and changing the passwords and other associated info. I don't know how they got the access whether it was through a security leak from Apple (again, I don't have the software on this computer or any computer)... or if they had logged my e-mail and password from somewhere else and used it there on a fluke (I've since stopped using that password and haven't logged into iTunes in probably a year or more). No idea. But I HIGHLY suggest you guys look into this yourself.

I'm now in contact with my bank, PayPal, and iTunes trying to get these charges removed from my account (and the 35 some odd finance charges for overdrafts which should be another $1,000+). Quite the fun and exciting adventure. Seriously if I ever found this person and I intend to try, they're going to wish they never did this.

[formare]

Danm that sucks...

[WadeWilson]

Man that sucks. You should be able to file a claim and receive a credit from your bank while they investigate the charges.

[John Shields]

Originally Posted by Shardik2SS

Man that sucks. You should be able to file a claim and receive a credit from your bank while they investigate the charges.

They were the first ones we called and they said they'll be contacting us by the end of the day to let us know what the investigation showed. Now that I know exactly how the whole scheme went down I'm hoping they'll quickly reimburse the taken money, remove the charges, and credit all additional overdraft charges.

I'm also going to file a Police Report with the Internet Crimes guys and have them follow up through iTunes to try and obtain IP's on the guys who accessed the account (yesterday and this morning). HOPEFULLY they live in the U.S. and we'll have them up on felony charges. I had an account a long time ago hacked but it was from Canada. So, I never could pursue that.

[Iwantone2]

John, I feel for you....this happened to me a little while ago:

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66940

I also got "robbed" through iTunes and fortunately, my bank was able to get me my money back hassle free. They said that if they could not figure out who charged me so much, that they would make iTunes pay for it

[John Shields]

Originally Posted by Iwantone2

John, I feel for you....this happened to me a little while ago:

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66940

I also got "robbed" through iTunes and fortunately, my bank was able to get me my money back hassle free. They said that if they could not figure out who charged me so much, that they would make iTunes pay for it

Yup, sounds almost exactly the same. I have to wonder if it's a security leak in Apple or just a coincidence. If I were a user I'd be checking into this. I wont EVER be using a credit/debit card or PayPal for any purchase online again. From now on, pre-paid/loaded cards or gift cards and that's IT.

[WadeWilson]

Originally Posted by John Shields

They were the first ones we called and they said they'll be contacting us by the end of the day to let us know what the investigation showed. Now that I know exactly how the whole scheme went down I'm hoping they'll quickly reimburse the taken money, remove the charges, and credit all additional overdraft charges.

I'm also going to file a Police Report with the Internet Crimes guys and have them follow up through iTunes to try and obtain IP's on the guys who accessed the account (yesterday and this morning). HOPEFULLY they live in the U.S. and we'll have them up on felony charges. I had an account a long time ago hacked but it was from Canada. So, I never could pursue that.

Good luck!! I haven't had an issue with i Tunes but did have to file a claim after I had $272 taken out of my account due to someone making purchases on eBay. They canceled my card, issued me a credit and then sent me the results of their findings. Bank of America has been great when dealing with problems such as this.

[2ndgenz28]

That a very common mistake that folks have been blaming Paypal for since day 1.

never link your main checking or savings account to Paypal and the same goes for your 10k limit credit cards.

You should have one of those free bank accounts set up just for paypal and online stuff, using the free fake CC/debit card you get with said accounts.
[at a different bank then you use for your regular stuff]

So you can never lose more then you have in the said online only use account.

Though Itunes gets hacked like that all the time, Apple/mac systems are not as secure as they boast.

[Crowley]

Looks like it was more than just you as well .. check this out:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/23/paypal-itunes-fraud/

Reports are appearing this morning about a major security hole in iTunes accounts linked to PayPal. At least one group of scammers has found a way to charge thousands of dollars to iTunes accounts through PayPal. One targeted customer told us, “My account was charged over $4700. I called security at PayPal and was told a large number of iTunes store accounts were compromised.” His email was filled with nearly 50 receipts from PayPall for $99.99 each. (Update: they were for “CastleCraft, Dragon Crystals (10000 Pack), Seller: Freeverse, Inc”). He was able to catch it before his bank disbursed funds to PayPal.

But others were not so lucky. A quick search of Twitter and Facebook shows that the problem is not isolated. Joey Bruce on Twitter laments:

Someone hacked my iTunes/paypal acct and drained everything from my bank account. Life is kicking me in the balls while I’m down.

A search of public status updates on Facebook uncovers more people with the same issue:

Darn…what a day! Someone hacked into my itunes account and bought a crap load of downloads and emptied out my paypal account….grrrrr. . . . Paypal is very cooperative but there is just about no way to get ahold of itunes. I did call paypal and they assured me that they had contacted itunes and it was going to be taken care of in my favor.

so apple/itunes had a security breach & someone bought over $500 worth of music through my paypal account. just what i wanted 2 b dealing w/ while in San Diego! AWESOME!!!

Everybody watch your itunes account closely. I just got hacked for almost $1000.00 worth of software, videos and music. Hopefully paypal will refund it all. . . . This happened within the last few hours. Once transaction after another.

AT least PayPal is aware of the issue, but it seems like the problem is on the iTunes side.

[Iwantone2]

^^^

[fieldgoal00]

someone bought a $50 itunes gift card through my paypal account, last week, thankfully paypal and apple gave me my money back.

[John Shields]

Originally Posted by Crowley

Looks like it was more than just you as well .. check this out:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/23/paypal-itunes-fraud/

Reports are appearing this morning about a major security hole in iTunes accounts linked to PayPal. At least one group of scammers has found a way to charge thousands of dollars to iTunes accounts through PayPal. One targeted customer told us, “My account was charged over $4700. I called security at PayPal and was told a large number of iTunes store accounts were compromised.” His email was filled with nearly 50 receipts from PayPall for $99.99 each. (Update: they were for “CastleCraft, Dragon Crystals (10000 Pack), Seller: Freeverse, Inc”). He was able to catch it before his bank disbursed funds to PayPal.

But others were not so lucky. A quick search of Twitter and Facebook shows that the problem is not isolated. Joey Bruce on Twitter laments:

Someone hacked my iTunes/paypal acct and drained everything from my bank account. Life is kicking me in the balls while I’m down.

A search of public status updates on Facebook uncovers more people with the same issue:

Darn…what a day! Someone hacked into my itunes account and bought a crap load of downloads and emptied out my paypal account….grrrrr. . . . Paypal is very cooperative but there is just about no way to get ahold of itunes. I did call paypal and they assured me that they had contacted itunes and it was going to be taken care of in my favor.

so apple/itunes had a security breach & someone bought over $500 worth of music through my paypal account. just what i wanted 2 b dealing w/ while in San Diego! AWESOME!!!

Everybody watch your itunes account closely. I just got hacked for almost $1000.00 worth of software, videos and music. Hopefully paypal will refund it all. . . . This happened within the last few hours. Once transaction after another.

AT least PayPal is aware of the issue, but it seems like the problem is on the iTunes side.

WOW. So the leak is iTunes. Unbelievable. It might not directly damage people (unless of course they had payments coming out or intended on spending money today)... it's more of a pain in the butt. However, that doesn't make this easier to accept.

I've gone and filed a police report and spoke to a Fraud Detective. I'm going to follow up on this and hope that I can find out who was involved in this. The upside for them is that they didn't take the money. They just made it so I spent my money on crap music. So they didn't so much "steal"... but I'm still out either way until it's resolved.

I have to wonder how this is going to affect Apples rep. Especially since it's IMPOSSIBLE to contact them about this (was told by two reps there is no phone contact number for iTunes problems). The internet strikes again.

[KnightRiderSS]

I had someone hack my iTunes and charge my CC...it was only 10 bucks but still annouying...I got the money back...Apple was LESS than helpful...my bank helped me...I changed my account prefs to paypal...they need to make it so you don't have to give billing info...I tried removing mine but it won't let me

I am thinking about parting from apple over this...they need to get their heads out of their asses...

[Scott@Bjorn3D]

Also a good move for PayPal is to have the Security key. It is like 5.00 but it has a number set locked to the key and it generates a number to put after your password each time. So even if they now the password they can not do anything.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/websc...ityKey-outside