More to Be Careful About: For Apple, Pressure Builds Over App Store Fraud

  Photo by Ben Sklar. Click the image for the full story.

As reported by Evelyn Rusli and Brian Chen in the New York Times: “In a little over an hour, Ryan Matthew Pierson racked up $437.71 in iTunes charges for virtual currency that he could use to buy guns, nightclubs, and cars in iMobsters, a popular iPhone game. One problem: Mr. Pierson, a technology writer in Texas, has never played iMobsters. Pierson said purchases were made from his iTunes account without his knowledge. ‘This was fraud. I woke up, checked my e-mail, and I could see these purchases happening in real time.’ He raised the issue with Apple and his bank, and the problem was eventually resolved. But his experience is hardly unique, as reflected by hundreds of online complaints saying that Apple’s iTunes Store, and in particular its App Store, which the company portrays as the safest of shopping environments, is not so secure.”