How to Prevent iTunes Credit Card Fraud

You may wake up one morning to discover an email informing you of a “£10 Monthly Gift for iy3311@sohu.com “, an account you’d never heard of.  For more than a year, scammers have been making unauthorized charges on iTunes accounts, leaving Apple’s customers to clean up the mess. Many victims of the iTunes fraud are having trouble fixing the situation. Neither the banks, Paypal, or Apple accept any responsibility. Meanwhile, victims are left without hundreds, even thousands of dollars. However, you can protect yourself by following these simple steps:

1. Delete your credit card information from iTunes by going to Store > View My Account, then click on Edit Payment Information and now set the Credit Card option to “None”. Click “Done” and the Payment Information box should show “No credit card on file”.


2. If you don’t want to give your credit card information, you can create an iTunes App Store account without a credit card. Please see this guide.


3. Fund your account with an iTunes gift card. The cards can be purchased from many retailers like Walmart, Target, and BestBuy. Or, you can make iTunes purchases with a single-use credit card number available from your credit card company. If you are unable to do those, enter your credit card info when you want to make a purchase then remove it immediately after the purchase by following option 1.


4. Create a strong password and change your password periodically. For more information on best practices for password security visit http://www.apple.com/support/itunes


5. Double check your iTunes Account for Fraud to verify that your iTunes account hasn’t been hacked. To do so, click the Account link (on the right of the main iTunes Store page), log in, and then click the Purchase History.

If you notice any authorization or charge that was not applied by yourself then you will need to contact your bank immediately so that they can cancel your credit card. Upon cancelling your credit card they will reissue a new one and process a charge-back. Next you should contact Apple via phone, or email if the phone option is not available, to inform them that your iTunes account was hacked so that they can investigate to prevent this happening from again.