Cyber crooks robbed PayPal accounts via flaw in the Apple iTunes

On Monday reports surfaced on the Internet about major security bug in iTunes accounts that allowed hackers to drain a lot of money from PayPal. However, in fact the complaints of the problem that was experienced by many iTunes customers has been submitted on the online forums since the beginning of August and even earlier.

"I found seven different iTunes charges in my email inbox yesterday totaling $291 for apps that I never purchased," "JTurnerBurner" wrote in a forum on July 11. "They were made within a few minutes of each other and I have since canceled my credit card, changed my iTunes password and notified Apple, but have heard nothing back from Apple other than an automatic email response."

Another forum member found Apple's response to his protest about unauthorized charges almost as bad as the charges themselves. "My son made a big fuss about his unauthorized charges and Apple just disabled his iTunes account," "stateofdenial" wrote on July 12. "Now they won't respond and we can't get his account to work any more at all.

"It's bad enough that we are paying the unauthorized charges, but the iPhone is virtually worthless without being able to download apps and music," he added. "So now that my son can't use his iTunes account, I feel like throwing all three phones away."

A more recent target, "jimmyzdc," wrote on August 16 that he, too, had had $300 charged to a PayPal account "which I don't even use anymore for legit purchases.

"The PayPal rep I talked to said they had been getting a lot of calls regarding this same issue and they were working very closely with Apple," he added. "The rep said the amount ($300) would be refunded to my PayPal account within the next couple days. I have to commend PayPal on a great job when I called on this issue."