“Apl.itunes has taken money from my account and I never ordered anything.”
That’s the title of a problem on Get Satisfaction started by a frustrated user who got swindled by someone pretending to be Apple. The number of people who have this problem keeps growing.
In researching the details, I’ve found out that this may be an updated version of what used to be called the “pint of milk” scam. The way that one worked: a thief would use a stolen debit or credit card to make a really tiny purchase — a pint of milk. Once that test transaction went through, they knew the card was open for business, so to speak. At least, that’s the urban legend I’ve heard (or the metaphor someone at some point assigned to this scam).
The iTunes Store works great for this kind of scam because people (me included, I just bought a song on iTunes this morning) get used to the idea of numerous $1 purchases winding their way through their stream of financial activity. Once you start buying songs like this, you just don’t pay attention to every single transaction that shows up in your records, if you pay attention at all.
What responsibility does Apple have in this matter? Any? Simply put: none. But that hasn’t stopped a deluge of people with this problem from blaming Apple for this scam on Get Satisfaction.
This is a public relations quandary that many companies have had to deal with. Even though Apple is just as much a victim in this case, staying silent about it won’t make it go away (in fact, this scam seems to be growing, and quickly). I would argue that Apple, just like any company with a very strong brand, would do well to publicize this kind of consumer fraud. Why? First and foremost, being seen as a champion of consumers is always good. You’ll always be rewarded for that. Second, you can’t control how your customers (or potential customers) talk about you online, but you can react to what they are saying — and you should. There are lots of other reasons I could list that recommend and support engaging with customers on this level, but there’s one paramount reason Apple should address this problem: Ignoring it will only encourage negative assumptions about iTunes to fester.
Like Thor, our CEO at Get Satisfaction, put it in a great blog post about defending your online reputation:
“It’s amazing how often people let spurious charges go unanswered in a public forum. It seems that most people and organizations have two modes online, silent or litigious. There’s another approach: responsiveness. The trick is to not respond in a reactionary style, which can create a destructive blowback effect, but rather in the measured and calming tone of someone who is better informed. Your job is to correct facts, provide the missing context, clarify the intentions.”
I’m a huge (huge!) Apple fan, but that does sound like Apple: either silent or litigious. I sent some friendly messages to Apple PR reps about this problem, but I’ve yet to get a response. I hate to see Get Satisfaction users having these kinds of problems. I bet even a sympathetic nod would do the trick.
If you have knowledge or experience with this particular scam — or want to offer your own sympathetic nod — join the conversation here.
[Apple is on Get Satisfaction.]
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3 Comments
I see a lot of posts saying Apple should go after the scammers themselves. I don’t know how apple would trace them unless an apple employee got scammed and then they could work with the employee to trace it. The way it is now, apple can’t Jack Bauer this information out of the banks or anything, there’s privacy rules.
If one of the customers finds out who the scammer is or some other information that Apple could THEN use to defend it’s reputation among the incredibly small amount of people who were never their customer to begin with, then I’m sure Apple would continue to not really have any recourse. All I can think of is each customer’s gonna have to reverse the charges manually. Sucks, but it’s the only choice, and it’s a long annoying process.
they *are* responsible if they know this is an ongoing problem and choose to do nothing about it. the woman i spoke with at apple customer service acted like this had never happened before. they shouldn’t lie to potential customers like that; it insults their intelligence. this is a HUGE problem and they do themselves no favors sticking their heads in the sand. that’s negligence. they could do with less smug customer service, too.
p.s. the person i talked to at apple said they *do* have information they can use to track the person who made unauthorized transactions on my debit card. i never had an itunes account so there is no confusion as to which charges were valid and which were not. apple chooses to not do anything with this information, even when confronted with the fact that those charges were fraudulent.