A man in Tucson, Arizona, recently fell prey to a new iteration of the Apple Support scam. In the past, scammers impersonating Apple Support have targeted Apple customers through phone calls, even going to the extent of spoofing actual Apple Support phone numbers to make the calls appear legitimate. One Florida resident lost $16,000 in this scheme.
The Tucson resident, who prefers to remain anonymous, disclosed to a local news outlet that he lost $2,000 after being lured by a text message he believed was from Apple Support. The text informed him of purported unauthorized billing activity and provided a phone number to call for resolution. He contacted the number and suspects that the hacker managed to install malware on his iPhone, gaining access to his Chase bank account.
This Apple Support text scam has been widespread over the past year, with multiple reports on Apple’s community forum of iPhone users receiving similar, if not identical, text messages posing as Apple Support.
[Apple Security Alert] We have observed that your Apple ID was recently used at “APPLE STORE” for $143.95, paid by Apple Pay Pre Authorization. Additionally, some suspicious sign-in requests and Apple Pay activation requests were detected. This appears suspicious to us. To safeguard the security and privacy of your account, we have placed these requests on hold. If this was not you, please call +1 to speak with an Apple Representative. Failing to do so may result in automatic debit, and the charge will not be reversed. Call immediately to cancel this charge.
Have a great day!
The man mentioned that Chase flagged multiple charges in the $500 range, ultimately reversing their decision on two charges totaling $2,000 – one on Alibaba.com and the other in Singapore. Chase asserted that these transactions were “authorized by the customer with no evidence of fraudulent account takeover or compromised device.”
This incident serves as a reminder to exercise caution when responding to suspicious texts or answering calls from unknown numbers. If prompted to call a number that seems legitimate, take a moment to verify the number independently. Apple also offers resources on safeguarding against common scams and reporting them. When in doubt, refrain from responding to suspicious texts, clicking on any embedded links, or calling provided numbers. There’s no guarantee of recovering stolen funds.
global $wp;
. ‘/’;
?>
