Scam Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Canadian customers get lumps of clay instead of iPads

by Chris Rawson (Jan 19th, 2012)

Vancouver, B.C. resident Mark Sandhu bought a new iPad 2 for his wife for Christmas, but when she opened the box, she found a tablet of another kind: a big chunk of clay. Sandhu took his purchase back to Canadian retailer Future Shop and complained, but the store initially thought he was trying ...

Fake Apple billing email is circulating

by Kelly Hodgkins (Dec 28th, 2011)

Not surprisingly, scammers are targeting Apple customers with a fake phishing email asking them to update their account billing information. People who are new to Apple and probably received their first Mac or iOS device during the holiday season are particularly vulnerable to this scam. This ...

No Comment: Woman buys wooden iPad

by Mike Schramm (Aug 30th, 2011)

This is a completely hypothetical situation: Someone in a McDonald's parking lot says he picked up an iPad for a cheap $300, and wonders if you'd want to buy it off of him for just $180. You decide why not (because reputable salesmen always just hang around in the parking lots of fast food ...

MobileMe, iCloud phishing scam making the rounds

by Michael Grothaus (Aug 26th, 2011)

There's a new phishing scam going around today involving MobileMe and iCloud. As noted by MacRumors, the scam involves an email that asks users to upgrade their MobileMe accounts to iCloud. The email reads: Dear MobileMe member, Please sign up for iCloud and click the submit botton ...

New phishing email pretends to be from Apple's online store

by Chris Rawson (May 18th, 2011)

We've received several reports today of an email making the rounds that's very likely a phishing scam. The message content is cleverly designed to look like it's coming from the Apple Store, and clicking on any of the links will take you to a website that's even superficially similar to Apple's ...

AppleCare rep tells Ed Bott Mac malware reports are up

by Dana Franklin (May 18th, 2011)

An anonymous AppleCare support representative spoke to ZDNet's Ed Bott over the weekend, telling the reporter that complaints about malware infections on the Mac increased significantly in the first half of May. "This last week over 50% of our calls have been about [malware]," said the AppleCare ...

Scammers upload music to iTunes, then buy it using stolen credit cards

by Michael Grothaus (Dec 20th, 2010)

Talk about jailhouse rock. Last week, 19-year-old Lamar Johnson pleaded guilty in a UK court to one count of conspiracy to defraud, according to the BBC. He was using stolen credit card numbers to buy his own band's music on iTunes and Amazon, thus collecting the royalties. Johnson was part of a ...

Thousands stolen through iTunes/Paypal scam

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Aug 24th, 2010)

The BBC reports that a web scam is affecting a number of iTunes accounts that are linked to PayPal. Amounts ranging up to $4,700 were reported on Twitter and through Techcrunch as being stolen. All signs point to users falling for an online scam known as phishing. People will get e-mails that ...

Scammers exploit Apple iPad fever

by Mike Schramm (Feb 1st, 2010)

And now we're at the point in the iPad cycle where there's just enough information out there about it that people are interested, but not enough that they can discern credible information from scammers. That's the report of the BBC, which says that "hi-tech" scammers are using iPad-based searches to ...

Beware of MobileMe phishing scam

by Steven Sande (May 18th, 2009)

Several TUAW readers have contacted us about a MobileMe phishing scam. These readers are getting an email that looks surprisingly official (see below). When they click on the Log In button, they're going to a page that has already been shut down. That might not always be the case. Never, never, ...

Apple scammed out of 9,000 shuffles

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Mar 23rd, 2009)

Looks like Mike Teevee kept busy after visiting Mr. Wonka's factory. Somehow a guy in Kalamazoo, Michigan figured out a sequence of 9,000 iPod shuffle serial numbers, rang up Apple and promptly requested 9,000 "replacements." Apple shipped him the units, and he promptly sold them below MSRP to a ...

Open Tech is up for sale

by Cory Bohon (Aug 26th, 2008)

Just as quickly as Open Tech opened up, the Mac clone creator has decided to put itself up for sale. Of course, we're not sure who would buy a company that could be sued at anytime by the Mothership. Open Tech has information about the sale on their website. For just $50,000 (payable via PayPal, ...

Sketchy site offers iPhone apps 'at a price that's a steal'

by Robert Palmer (Jul 22nd, 2008)

iPhoneApps.org, currently the top Google result when searching for "iPhone apps," offers 10 apps for $25, including much-sought-after MMS and video recording capability. But hold on there, pardner, because it looks like they make you jailbreak your phone to get the apps to work. According to a post ...

eBay scammers target iPhone fans

by Michael Rose (Mar 20th, 2007)

People, people, people. The phone's not shipping yet. It's not out yet. It's not even approved by the FCC! So why -- why on earth -- would anyone with the slightest degree of common sense bid almost one thousand dollars on eBay just for the privilege of getting ripped off? Wow. Three auctions for ...

M-M-M-MacBook Pro eBay scam

by David Chartier (Jun 7th, 2006)

If you remember the P-P-P-Powerbook scam last year, then you're going to love the new and improved M-M-M-Macbook scam. Once again, a Something Awful forum dweller by the name of isnoop has documented quite the adventure involving a MacBook Pro sale on eBay, and the intrepid scammer who didn't quite ...

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