Apple on guard against fraudulent refund cases after scammers hack into accounts in China

Apple has advised its Chinese customers to adopt more stringent security measures when making payments with their Apple ID accounts after recent phishing scams resulted in financial losses for several hundred users.

The Cupertino, California-based technology giant also said it has seen a rising number of fraudulent refund cases in China, indicating that some consumers were trying to profit by filing false statements.

Some 700 Chinese users have claimed their Apple IDs were hacked by third parties who made unauthorised payments, resulting in losses of between a few hundred yuan to tens of thousands, the official China Central Television (CCTV) news reported on October 3. Apple only refunded money to a few users while rejecting the claims of the rest, it added.

“Our investigation found a small number of our users’ accounts were accessed through phishing scams where two-factor authentication was not enabled,” Apple said in a statement on Tuesday, two weeks after the CCTV news, without elaborating on the number of users affected.

“We also experienced a rise in false and fraudulent refund claims trying to take advantage of this incident,” Apple said.

The Apple security incident in China comes amid forecasts of challenging sales prospects for its expensive new iPhone in the world’s most populous country. Apple is expected to report lower third quarter sales in China, the world’s largest smartphone market, according to a report from Goldman Sachs on Sunday, which said there were multiple signs of rapidly slowing consumer demand in China.