Scammers Use iTunes to Drain Bank Accounts?

MYFOXNY.COM - It's a huge scam that's so sneaky you may not even know you've been hit till it's too late. Victims across the country are complaining they've been left holding the bag for iTunes charges they never made. They blame cyber-scammers who use financial information and iTunes as a weapon to drain their accounts. It's a widespread scam that's unfolding across the country but it's still unclear how it's being pulled off.

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But ultimately scammers use iTunes to funnel cash from a victim's bank account, PayPal or credit card.

"I panicked, I was absolutely freaking out!" says Kimberly Pullis, from Naples, Maine, who discovered mysterious charges popping up in her iTunes account that she says she didn't make.

Daniel Buergo of Long Beach, Calif., says he spotted mysterious charges too that immediately posted to his bank account, "It makes me feel pretty down and out, upset, disgusted, of course you don't feel safe."

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The high-tech scam has claimed victims from New York to California. At the heart of it all is Apple's wildly popular iTunes. Victims say it starts with an unexpected e-mail for purchases they never made. That's how Rachel Katz from Manhattan found out, "I got two emails thanking me for my purchase."

But by the time victims get the e-mail receipt it's usually too late. The receipts appear to be legitimate, and come from Apple, generated by the user's iTunes account. The receipts show purchases for iTunes electronic gift certificates and charges that hit checking accounts, credit cards or PayPal depending on what the user has linked to his or her iTunes account.

Many alleged victims say they've been nailed with $100 worth of charges, usually in the form of two electronic iTunes gift certificates valued at $50 each. But on blogs and complaint boards, some victims say they've been hit for much more. In some postings, victims claim fraudulent charges in the hundreds and even thousands of dollars.

"In this economy a hundred dollars to some people is a huge amount of money," says Kimberly Pullis, who says she had a hundred bucks sucked right out of the PayPal account she has registered with iTunes.

But Rachel Katz's case in New York City seems to be the most unusual; she says the gift certificates charged to her iTunes account were billed to a total stranger's PayPal account. She only found out about it after the fact when what appears to be a legitimate iTunes receipt popped up in her inbox. She makes an interesting analogy about the alleged fraud: "They just had a party in my house, they paid the bill for their own liquor, and I only know it happened because I got an invitation to the party after it was over."

When Kimberly Pullis searched for other victims she found tons of people with new postings generated almost daily.

"I have read online Web site after Web site, blog after blog, where it has happened to thousands of people, out thousands of dollars," she says. If the postings popping up online are legitimate victims, then the scammers are making out like cyber bandits, racking up quite a bill on the backs of innocent victims.

Victims tell Fox 5 News that they either find it impossible or have a whole lot of trouble getting the charges removed. Kimberly Pullis says she tried fighting the charges with Apple, but customer service told her to deal with PayPal. She says PayPal tells her the charges appear to be valid, deal with Apple.

In Daniel Buergo's case, he disputed the charges with his bank, but he says his bank is pointing at Apple and in the middle of it all, Daniel is getting no where. He says what he learned from his bank is making it difficult to fight the mysterious charges.

"I found out that having my banking or credit card information in iTunes actually gives them authorization for future purchases," he says.

As of today, Daniel says his bank has offered to temporarily remove the charges while it investigates, but warns they may be put back if the fraud cannot be proven. The problem is Daniel is not sure how to prove the fraud, and he says Apple isn't helping.

Victims say they are stuck between endless finger pointing: Apple customer service reps blame the financial institution and identity theft, and the financial institution customer service rep blames Apple. When Kimberly Pullis finally gave up on the customer service reps at Apple and PayPal, she says she decided she might as well just use the gift codes that she supposedly bought. But when she tried to redeem them she was in for another shocker.

"I punched in the two codes from the e-mails, I received from iTunes and both certificates told me that I had already redeemed it," she says.

So what might scammers do with thousands of stolen digital iTunes gift certificates?

Well digital tunes are such a hot commodity that the certificates are easy to turn into cold, hard cash, especially if they are resold