I am the "lucky" owner of an Iphone since March 2010. When I bought it, I did not have a credit card, so to activate my Itunes account, I bought a gift card, and activated it. Since I got the phone, I just bought 2 apps, and installed a couple of free apps. Then 2 weeks ago, I wanted to find out, how fast I am on ski, and well, that is worth CHF 1.10, so I wanted to buy an app, after i had not bought one for months. I got caught in a loop, accepting Apples changed conditions and clicking "purchase app" followed by entering a password multiple times, but never got the App, and suddenly the message, I did not have enough on my account. Initially i had bought a chf 30 gift card, and just bought apps for 3-4 chf, so obviously something was wrong. When i got home, i installed itunes on my new laptop, and logged in and found my purchase history. Some D1ck had hacked my account and bought Apps woth chf 26, so i just had 30 rappen left. Immediately complain to apple support, but they refused a refund, with a mail "Your request for a refund for "Things" was carefully considered; however, according to the iTunes Store Terms of Sale, all purchases made on the iTunes Store are ineligible for refund. This policy matches Apple's refund policies and provides protection for copyrighted materials."Theres no hotline, only way to contact them is by email, and when they dont even read what i write, and just send a standard reply, and a have disabled a second contact attempt, I am now so p1ssed off with them, I will go to the police tomorrow and report fraud. Im not optimistic, it helps at all, but surely apple must have a record of which IP address, these apps were purchased from.

Anyway, thanks to their support, and helpfulness, the iphone is the only apple product, I will ever own.

Doc.

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‘I had a bottle of whisky that I’d bought to take with me when I go to visit friends in Canada, but I thought, “I’m not opening that for him!”
- Gillian Duffy when Gordon Brown visited her

So, it sounds like you tried to buy a 'bogus' app - and the person took the information, hacked your account, and stole your credit ?

I wonder what the app was? I guess it would go into the category of 'computer virus' or 'phishing' attack ?

How did they get your password to be able to hack your account ?

It happened in September. I just did not notice it until 2 weeks ago, when I wanted to buy a ski speedometer app.

The last app I "bought" before it happened, was a Shazam update, and before that Swiss Traffic, but are free and work great.

I have no Idea, how my account info was obtained. I had Itunes installed on my work pc only, and that was always up to date with all MS Patches, and got patched so often with security patches, it was a real nuisence.

Doc.

Sucks I've had to reverse a payment for an app once (I paid for it with a credit card though) and had no problem. I guess gift cards work differently.
Sorry this happened to you..

This seems to be the only place something could have gone wrong. I would check to see that you didn't leave your pc logged on and then someone used your iTunes to purchase things.

Impossible. I have checked my calendar, and I worked from home that day.

Doc.

Theres an apple store in Zurich. How bout just going there and asking them?

Unfortunately is it really worth it ? How much is your time worth ???

iTunes is not known for an impenetrable security standard. See here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12127603 for various reported hacks, including this statement

You owe me 75chf for reading this...

I will report it to the police, and See if Apple becomes more cooperative. If not, Then i am stuck with free apps from now on, As i certainly dont trust Them enough to use my credit card, and i dont want to use a prepaid card again, now that i know, they just keep my money, if abuse kappens again.
The chf 26 is less than 1 hours work for me, but it is the principle, that they dont even have a look, and just try to fob me off, that p1sses me off.

At least a few persons have read my complaint here, so at least i caused i wee bit of negative publicity.

Doc

__________________
‘I had a bottle of whisky that I’d bought to take with me when I go to visit friends in Canada, but I thought, “I’m not opening that for him!”
- Gillian Duffy when Gordon Brown visited her

E-mail Steve Jobs directly, rumor has it he answers the occasional non-believer or critic. I just want to say "Good luck".

I emailed Steve once. I had issues with a dead iphone (I accidentally drowned it) and my service provider was demanding that I cancel my contract, pay out the remainder of it and sign up for a new one (all up about $1600 and then a new $2400 contract) as Apple didn't allow the purchase of phones outright. We messed around for about 3 weeks and finally I snaped and wrote a polite email to Mr Jobs explaining the predicament and advising that I was no longer going to own an iphone. I didn't get a response from Mr Jobs but amazingly was advised the following day by my service provider that they now had facilites to replace my phone without me having to sign up for a new contract (for $900).
I'd write the email. Be polite and you may find that your problem is rectified

You're more likely to make some kind of progress speaking with Apple directly; the police are unlikely to get involved in a civil matter.

Also be aware that the problem was most likely on your end; as someone suggested, an unlocked computer or poor password security are the most likely culprits.

It's much more likely you made a mistake than somebody "hacked" your account and and bought some apps you don't want. As you receive an email within a day or two of each app purchase, you should have been aware that it had happened much more quickly than a month - which may be the basis of Apple rejecting your refund request.

I suggest you approach it calmly and speak with Apple directly at their store. No offense, but your English is a bit hard to follow, and it's entirely possible they misunderstood your original message, too.

Edit: on the last point, I've decided it's more an issue of paragraph usage than English.

I read the thread title and immediately thoght of this:


Sorry...

i thought purchased apps were linked to your itunes account? so if you change your password and lock down your account, can apps bought on your itunes account be used by somebody else?

Who would have thought that ? A few hours ago, Apple sent me a reply to my second complaint, launched 1 week ago. First they apologised, they needed a whole week to answer instead of the promised 3 days, and while they did not reimburse me for the lost amount, as it was simply too long ago, they did credit my account with 20 Song Codes, so my deep apologies to Apple, as they are ok after all :-)

Doc.

Perhaps a bit off topic but what's the Genius bar like at Apple stores in Suisse?...Say the location in Geneva?...Similar to what you'd receive in the US?

Only known security-issues get patched. And on Windows, they only get patched when Microsoft thinks they are critical enough.
The ability of virus-scanners to detect viruses not in their databases is often best described as "weak".

Just because you have "all" patches, does not mean anything.

Another idea: did you have a weak password for your account?

http://news.google.com/news/search?a...hl=en&q=itunes
(scroll down a little)

Also, last year (well, make it the year before last year), it was reported that apparently, the gift-card algorithm had been reverse engineered:
http://www.google.ch/search?q=hacked...ient=firefox-a

So it may be that not your account was hacked, but the gift-card itself.

The only way, security could have been increased more, would be by removing my local admin rights, but XP, and I may need to change network settings when at a customers location means, it was not an option, otherwise they would have done it too.

The card was credited to my account in March, and there was a purchase on 16/9, for a few apps and 2 songs. One of them was "Legändä and Hälda" which I thought was swedish for legends and heroes, but turned out to be swiss german rap. I could see in itunes exactly what was purchased, but i did not have a recepit for the purchase, and thats why i did not notice it until several months later. They probably sent one, as they normally do, but i guess it was caught by the spamfilter then.

Doc.

__________________
‘I had a bottle of whisky that I’d bought to take with me when I go to visit friends in Canada, but I thought, “I’m not opening that for him!”
- Gillian Duffy when Gordon Brown visited her