Many Apple customers in Singapore have complained of losses totalling of hundreds of dollars, after being billed for purchases they did not make on their iTunes accounts.
Responding to the complaints, banks of Singapore have initiated measures to provide respite to the harried account holders.
Apple Singapore said that it was looking into the matter. The company also highlighted its support page for customers to report any problems with purchases made on iTunes.
Victims said that charges were deducted from their accounts at HSBC, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and other banks.
Two Singaporean citizens lost at least SGD7,000 each to iTunes purchases with one saying she was billed on her HSBC credit card. She added that she only realised something was amiss when she received a text message from HSBC that she had less than 30 per cent of her credit limit left. She realised the extent of the issue after speaking to a customer service operator.
There were 58 cases of fraudulent transactions in OCBC alone during July. Vincent Tan, head of credit cards at OCBC Bank said, “In early July, we detected and investigated unusual transactions on 58 cardholders’ accounts. Upon confirmation that these were fraudulent transactions, we deployed the necessary counter-measures and are currently assisting the affected cardholders via the chargeback process.”
Alerted by the development, United Overseas Bank (UOB) has started monitoring of iTunes transactions.
UOB said, “Where our system detected a potentially fraudulent transaction, we immediately called our customer to check with them on the transaction.”
“We would help a customer claim a refund once the fraudulent transaction is confirmed. A new card would also be issued as an additional security measure,” it added.
UOB would send an SMS notification to the customers who are unable to reach. It would also block their bank accounts temporarily to prevent further potential misuse.
