itunes account hacked

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I've been lucky and haven't been hacked on my itunes but they got me on Xbox360. As soon as that happened, I took my CC off itunes too.
Luckily my CC company was good about it and overnighted me a new CC the next day.

I hope you get it straightened out soon.

 

[MineMail]

A friend of mine gave me some great advice when my kids received iPods earlier this year. She said to log onto my Apple/iTunes account and remove any credit card information. Redeem gift cards for songs and other legitimate purposes as needed. If I do need to buy something on a credit card, DON'T let Apple/iTunes store the credit card information. Check after completing the purchases and delete anything that might have been saved.

After reading about the parents who got socked with a huge bill by a game on their daughter's iPod, I am so grateful that my friend had clued me into this security risk.

I keep about $10 (from gift cards) on the iTunes account and my kids don't know the password to use it, so I'm always in the loop. We buy the iTunes cards at our local supermarket and they give points towards gas purchases, so there's really no fees. Definitely have peace of mind.

Sorry about your account. I hope it all works out okay.

 

[mrs.beast]

I never link my credit card to i tunes or x box. For anything that is iffy that wants my card number on file, I have purchased a disposable visa debit card (not sure if that is the right name for it) from the grocery store. I registered it with my home address, and use that as my "back up" credit card. It is not linked to my real credit card, paypal acct, or bank acct. It only has $25 on it, so I will always have a cushion in case we don't have itunes money/xbox etc. It is the same card for all accounts and I have had it active for over a year. I occasionally check the balance online and it is fine.

 

[ConnieB]

Over $300 in charges to my papal account. Over $100 to my bank account and then over $200 to my Paypal account.

UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have spent over an hour on the phone with the credit card company, an hour with itunes, over an hour with Paypal, and my bank can't help me until after 9am today.

However, Paypal won't let me delete the account because charges are pending and itunes won't let me click on payment options "none" because charges are still pending.

This leaves me open to more fraudulent charges I am afraid, although Paypal has assured me that since I changed the email account info this isn't true.


What a nightmare.

I know now not to link anything to my itunes account (I had no idea they were not that secure).

When this is all over I plan to delete that Paypal account and make sure itunes is only through gift cards.

ARGH!,

Dawn

your credit card company should be able to shut down the account on their end....which means that any attempts by Paypal to charge more will be rejected. If you have a bank account attached, you'll want to contact the bank and have it closed due to fraud.

Be sure that you speak with the fraud department at both the credit card company and the bank (if you have an account attached). They definitely want to stop this because by law once you have reported the account as having fraud on it, your maximum responsibility is $50....and the credit card company (or bank) can be the one out the rest if they don't stop it.

I'd also call itunes and put them on notice that your account has been hacked and that you have notified bank/credit card, because if itunes keeps letting the hacker have merchandise they too are going to be out the money.

Then put this same information in WRITING and send it to each of these companies with return receipt.

 

[ConnieB]

Yes, Chase flagged them and cancelled my card.

HOWEVER, they also got my bank account info! ARGH!

Paypal won't let me remove my bank account info unil the charges have cleared, leaving me open to more charges.

itunes won't let me remove my paypal account info due to more uncleared charges.

ARGH!

Dawn

I said this above, but just wanted to reiterate it....call your BANK and have THEM close the bank account. If you have checks still outstanding or automatic payments, etc, just work with them to allow those to be cashed but NOT anything more from paypal/itunes. Forget Paypal...they never move very fast for fraud because they are simply acting as the middle man so they don't lose anything (except their fees). When your bank/credit card reject the payments, Paypal will reject them to the seller (itunes)...so it's paperwork for Paypal, but no lost revenue, so they aren't quick to act.

 

[tavettava]

Both Kids have an account for their ipods and i am so glad we only give them gc to purchase stuff and not our bank card.

 

[Ishy]

2 times i have been hacked. I only have giftcards on there.... I remove CC info - never keep it on file. I had to fight, but I got my balances restored. They can see IP's - and should be banishing those IP's. Sorry to say, but they are going to have to tighten up security if they want people to keep purchasing.

 

[DawnM]

Paypal was much faster than my bank! PP has been disabled.

The bank says they won't do a THING until the charges clear. They said they cannot stop payment unless I report it 3 days before the charges come in, which of course, I couldn't because I didn't know they were coming

itunes is lagging behind. They haven't done anything yet that I can see.

I will start making calls yet again tomorrow.

Dawn

I said this above, but just wanted to reiterate it....call your BANK and have THEM close the bank account. If you have checks still outstanding or automatic payments, etc, just work with them to allow those to be cashed but NOT anything more from paypal/itunes. Forget Paypal...they never move very fast for fraud because they are simply acting as the middle man so they don't lose anything (except their fees). When your bank/credit card reject the payments, Paypal will reject them to the seller (itunes)...so it's paperwork for Paypal, but no lost revenue, so they aren't quick to act.

 

[Abbeys_mom]

So sorry you are going through this! Our car was broken in to on New Year's Eve this year, Friday of a three day weekend, and DH's checkbook was stolen. What a mess!

Thanks for posting though, I just went and removed our debit card from our iTunes account. Also, thanks to those that posted instructions on how to do it.

 

[dreamin_disney]

My itunes account was hacked into as well. But I did not have any cc info on it just an itunes card that was used. Crazy...

my account was hacked a while back. It only had gift cards. I had never entered any cc numbers. Anyway I was a little taken aback when itunes lady states, this is a one time thing we are doing (giving me back my credit). So now we only enter little gift cards at a time. I also changed my password to a very, very long password with letters and numbers and make sure we are completely logged out when done. We only use it every so often (probably 4 times a year). I wish I hadn't bought so many gift cards around christmas time for my son otherwise I would tell itunes where they can go.

OP- i hope things get straightened out with your acct. what a headache


I bought dd 2 $25 gc last christmas and my niece gave my dd a $10 gc she won. I was thinking the gc would be safer but after reading this and some other post. I guess the smaller gc would be the way to go right? My dh signed up dd's itune acct and each time she buys something we get a statment through e-mail. If there are fraud charges would we still get an email or does dd need to keep checking her balance?

 

[MickeyManiac]

OP- i hope things get straightened out with your acct. what a headache


I bought dd 2 $25 gc last christmas and my niece gave my dd a $10 gc she won. I was thinking the gc would be safer but after reading this and some other post. I guess the smaller gc would be the way to go right? My dh signed up dd's itune acct and each time she buys something we get a statment through e-mail. If there are fraud charges would we still get an email or does dd need to keep checking her balance?

I did not get an e-mail receipt for the fraudulent iTunes charges to my Disney Visa. I only found out about them when I logged onto my account. I don't know if it would be different with giftcards.

 

[Swimalie]

I did not get an e-mail receipt for the fraudulent iTunes charges to my Disney Visa. I only found out about them when I logged onto my account. I don't know if it would be different with giftcards.

We have it set up that my husband's email always gets a receipt emailed to him for every purchase. This should help fraud getting caught but if the person can hack in to the account, they can change this options as well.

 

[Jaylin]

So ironic that I saw this thread today. I just had an app purchase for $105.99 last night. Luckily I was looking at the CC this morning and got the email confirmation.

What a pain itunes is, I can't believe they don't have customer service number. I clicked on report a problem and filled out the email form saying that I didn't purchase that app.

Is that all I can do?

It was charged to my Disney CC, should I be calling them an cancelling the card?

I just took my CC info out of my itunes account, thanks for that info. I guess I need to get some GC now!

 

[seashoreCM]

I don't think you need to close your maincredit card if a merchant or two is putting through fraudulent charges. Just report the bad charges. Let your credit card company make the decision whether to close it and send you a new card.

I don't think Itunes is out anything. If someone uses a bad credit card. Itunes upon getting charged back could also cancel the sale's existence. This could be why they are lackadaisical about answering inquiries.

It should not need numerous phone calls to iTunes. If you don't get through after a few tries including at least one snail mail letter, then you have satisfied your obligation to deal first with the merchant in good faith and can then file a dispute with your credit card company. The dispute with the credit card company should also include a snail mail letter unless, sooner, you got a snail mail or email letter back that acknowledges you started the dispute. Be sure to be punctual about starting disputes with your credit card company even if you haven't gottne replies from others that you are waiting for still.

 

[MickeyManiac]

So ironic that I saw this thread today. I just had an app purchase for $105.99 last night. Luckily I was looking at the CC this morning and got the email confirmation.

What a pain itunes is, I can't believe they don't have customer service number. I clicked on report a problem and filled out the email form saying that I didn't purchase that app.

Is that all I can do?

It was charged to my Disney CC, should I be calling them an cancelling the card?

I just took my CC info out of my itunes account, thanks for that info. I guess I need to get some GC now!

I just had this happen with 4 charges for almost the same amount to my Disney Visa. I called Chase and they immediately reversed the charges, changed my account number and overnighted new cards. I didn't bother with trying to contact iTunes. I assume Chase will contact them.

 

[disneysmyhappyplace]

We had our Itunes account hacked last year and they stole over $2500.00 dollars!! Our credit card company was excellent itunes was impossible to reach for help. Why is this happening so much! There must be security flaws in their system. We now only use virtual credit numbers and gift cards to buy things from the itunes store. We don't want to be subject to that again it was terrible, and who ever hacked our account did their transactions within minutes of one another. Terrible