It’s not a fraudulent transaction when a person charges their own credit card for a gift card regardless of whether it was under duress. I guess this is why they are not going to the banks to do a chargeback.
If buying the gift card directly from Apple, the contract is between you and Apple for the supply of the gift card only. If you then choose to send a gift card in payment for goods that you never receive, that has nothing to do with Apple. The gift card isn’t a form of payment - it is a gift...you expect nothing in return.
Apple and the Banks shouldn’t pay for your stupidity.
A friend (no really) told me about this young single mother in his 4 apartment building in the country, on welfare but working under the table, was threatened by phone by the "Revenue Service" to hand over "unpaid taxes" or else they will have her child taken away unless she sends hundreds of dollars worth by way of Apple gift card numbers by phone. Clearly under duress, she bought all the cards in the local convenience store and gave the numbers when they phoned back. They said it wasn't enough and that she had to drive to the next town to get more. Fortunately (!?) she had the sense to stop it there, this was around Christmas to boot. A real sneeze job. So the targets aren't always Apple customers and for all we know neither are the scammers, she was not AFAIK and might not even have known much about the company or gift cards and she surely bought them with cash. This is a sad example of a sad situation that makes it hard if not impossible to trace, particularly if the scammers spread out the time and locations of redeeming the card numbers for different purposes or even spread out the resale. Apple may have noted that scams typically follow a "formula" for an attack, before Apple's involvement, but there is no formula for redeeming cards, except for the dumbest of scammers. IANAL but this case might have a gallant cause of the meek versus the evil corporation but my verdict would be : puuuhhhlease !
So this woman actually believed an official government tax department would accept Apple gift cards as payment?
My guess is wire transfers are the biggest scam processes. Western Union, Walmart, Walgreens are very helpful in supporting people getting scammed big time.
My interviews with a few local banks, indicates they don't monitor even their own customers accounts for unusual withdrawals.
Sure, they might detect some unusual transfers using credit cards, and certainly if it is a foreign transfer, but otherwise scammers have it easy.
Going after Apple for iTunes gift card scams couldn't be more trivial.
The National Institute for Justice has sections on Elder Abuse -- pretty common. I'm pretty certain iTunes scams are not their modus operandi. Grand-parent scams are a big business -- the scammers don't use piddley iTunes gift cards.
The rich that fell for a 'get richer' pyramid scheme, bitcoin scams, Wells Fargo's fake accounts and so on are given headlines but not an elderly widow ripped off by a roofing company that goes out of business with her life savings and no work is done only to start up again a few weeks later in another State. This and hundreds of similar schemes go on every day and no one seems to give a damn.
Scammers are truly the lowest of the low whatever the scheme they employ. Scamming the elderly, the poor, single moms on the bread line, and so on should carry far higher penalties. I am just not sure what the punishment should be, if only there was some way to make them have to walk in their victims' shoes. At the very least they should have to work for a decade in service to their victims in some way, prison is not punishment enough and doesn't help their victims./rant
Can't have multiple credit cards attached to your Apple ID ... in 2020 seriously? Apple's back-end payment processing is straight out of the 1990s ... no wonder being proactive in relation to modern day Gift Card scams is all too hard (except to take the 30% cut). @lkrupp is correct in that the consumer ends up paying with higher prices for goods (no different to how retailers offset shoplifting).
A friend (no really) told me about this young single mother in his 4 apartment building in the country, on welfare but working under the table, was threatened by phone by the "Revenue Service" to hand over "unpaid taxes" or else they will have her child taken away unless she sends hundreds of dollars worth by way of Apple gift card numbers by phone. Clearly under duress, she bought all the cards in the local convenience store and gave the numbers when they phoned back. They said it wasn't enough and that she had to drive to the next town to get more. Fortunately (!?) she had the sense to stop it there, this was around Christmas to boot. A real sneeze job. So the targets aren't always Apple customers and for all we know neither are the scammers, she was not AFAIK and might not even have known much about the company or gift cards and she surely bought them with cash. This is a sad example of a sad situation that makes it hard if not impossible to trace, particularly if the scammers spread out the time and locations of redeeming the card numbers for different purposes or even spread out the resale. Apple may have noted that scams typically follow a "formula" for an attack, before Apple's involvement, but there is no formula for redeeming cards, except for the dumbest of scammers. IANAL but this case might have a gallant cause of the meek versus the evil corporation but my verdict would be : puuuhhhlease !
So this woman actually believed an official government tax department would accept Apple gift cards as payment?
The rich that fell for a 'get richer' pyramid scheme, bitcoin scams, Wells Fargo's fake accounts and so on are given headlines but not an elderly widow ripped off by a roofing company that goes out of business with her life savings and no work is done only to start up again a few weeks later in another State. This and hundreds of similar schemes go on every day and no one seems to give a damn.
Scammers are truly the lowest of the low whatever the scheme they employ. Scamming the elderly, the poor, single moms on the bread line, and so on should carry far higher penalties. I am just not sure what the punishment should be, if only there was some way to make them have to walk in their victims' shoes. At the very least they should have to work for a decade in service to their victims in some way, prison is not punishment enough and doesn't help their victims./rant
I think...HOPE....something karma-wise screws up their devious lives and the taken be compensated in someway. seems to me the mover and shakers in our world are more worried about a movie being downloaded that a senior sucked out of their saving for not being sharp anymore.
The rich that fell for a 'get richer' pyramid scheme, bitcoin scams, Wells Fargo's fake accounts and so on are given headlines but not an elderly widow ripped off by a roofing company that goes out of business with her life savings and no work is done only to start up again a few weeks later in another State. This and hundreds of similar schemes go on every day and no one seems to give a damn.
Scammers are truly the lowest of the low whatever the scheme they employ. Scamming the elderly, the poor, single moms on the bread line, and so on should carry far higher penalties. I am just not sure what the punishment should be, if only there was some way to make them have to walk in their victims' shoes. At the very least they should have to work for a decade in service to their victims in some way, prison is not punishment enough and doesn't help their victims./rant
I think...HOPE....something karma-wise screws up their devious lives and the taken be compensated in someway. seems to me the mover and shakers in our world are more worried about a movie being downloaded that a senior sucked out of their saving for not being sharp anymore.
I was in the apartment of some seniors, recently moved from their home in the neighborhood to this senior center. While there, they received a phone call. The husband answered and it became clear that he was on a elder-scam call. He was being asked to go to the local chain pharmacy and wire-transfer funds to the caller -- $5000.
Putting my attorney hat on, I began to counsel them that this was a scam call. They fought my counsel that the government, at least then, doesn't make telephone threats to pay back taxes to avoid arrest. In particular, I could not get them to accept that it was a scam, and once they understood, I could not get them to ask the questions to gather evidence that might be useful for later prosecution. This elderly couple, in their prime, were highly accomplished individuals but as seniors, had lost whatever cognitive ability was required to protect themselves.
Friends of mine, and a couple who are both elderly emeritus professors, were subject to elder-scam, being asked to wire-transfer money to their grandchild, went through all the steps, but were stopped by their son who by accident caught wind of it. (They made the wise decision to give their son say over their finances).
I had the experience of sitting on a Federal Grand Jury wherein such actions were finally being prosecuted and listen to the evidence, and how easy it is to scam people in general, not just the elderly.
My less direct experience recently is that many of a much younger age, seem to suffer from similar cognitive failures that beset these elderly couples. Threats work: the ability to stand up to such behavior is absent. "Man-ing up" seems lacking.
There ya go: by attempting to fix one problem, I’ve created ten other problems each of which is ten times worse. I think I’ve just written my first EU technical directive.
This is such a stupid ass lawsuit. The attorney that wrote it must be hoping for a nuisance settlement and what is the class “elders”? Is this jerk implying that only elders can be duped by such a scam?
Count this elder as one not in his class!
P.S. I am guessing this atty just graduated & passed the bar & wanted to impress his folx with his first case being a class action! The newest Jr partner at Dewey, Cheatum and Howe.
Although I love the Johnny Carson/Click-n-Clack reference, I must point out that, AFAIK, a lawyer can't just start out taking-on Class-Action suits. A lawyer (and/or their law firm) must be "qualified" to do Class Actions, and I believe the usual way is for a lawyer to partner with a Class-Qualified firm for the first case, and then go on to start doing Class Actions by themselves.
Heresy: Apple is not a religion. Tim Cook is not a god. Apple is not perfect.
Obviously you posted this in the wrong thread.
Interesting suggestion though. I bet an Apple Religion would be pretty successful. And the profit margins are likely higher than the Apple Card and hardware products.
Why aren't the other 99% of gift card companies getting sued together with Apple? They all use the same redemption scheme.
Because Apple has the deepest pockets.
I’ve said it before: the losing side should pay the winning side’s legal costs.
Sure, so a plaintiff with not so much cash should just bend over and get screwed again by deep pockets guy, who can afford in any event to wait until you're broke. Yeah, great idea.
Yeah I got an email (from what appears to be a client of mine), saying they were out of the country and could I pick up and mail out 6 $50.00 Apple Gift for her niece who just graduated from College. I played along for a while, but then told them to pay attention to whom they were emailing, as a work for the FBI., and now I've got enough info from all the emails to go after there ass … don't you dare open that door, causing I'm there with hand-cuffs. Weird, but no more emails from them.
Can't have multiple credit cards attached to your Apple ID ... in 2020 seriously? Apple's back-end payment processing is straight out of the 1990s ... no wonder being proactive in relation to modern day Gift Card scams is all too hard (except to take the 30% cut). @lkrupp is correct in that the consumer ends up paying with higher prices for goods (no different to how retailers offset shoplifting).
I’m genuinely curious. Why would an individual need to have multiple credit cards attached to their Apple ID? To me, it might suggest that the individual is constantly maxing out one or more of their credit cards and has larger finance management issues. Please correct me if my assumptions are wrong.
Comments
If buying the gift card directly from Apple, the contract is between you and Apple for the supply of the gift card only. If you then choose to send a gift card in payment for goods that you never receive, that has nothing to do with Apple. The gift card isn’t a form of payment - it is a gift...you expect nothing in return.
Apple and the Banks shouldn’t pay for your stupidity.
Why aren't the other 99% of gift card companies getting sued together with Apple? They all use the same redemption scheme.
My guess is wire transfers are the biggest scam processes. Western Union, Walmart, Walgreens are very helpful in supporting people getting scammed big time.
My interviews with a few local banks, indicates they don't monitor even their own customers accounts for unusual withdrawals.
Sure, they might detect some unusual transfers using credit cards, and certainly if it is a foreign transfer, but otherwise scammers have it easy.
Going after Apple for iTunes gift card scams couldn't be more trivial.
The National Institute for Justice has sections on Elder Abuse -- pretty common. I'm pretty certain iTunes scams are not their modus operandi. Grand-parent scams are a big business -- the scammers don't use piddley iTunes gift cards.
See https://consumerfed.org/in_the_media/fraud-videos-and-audio/
seems to me the mover and shakers in our world are more worried about a movie being downloaded that a senior sucked out of their saving for not being sharp anymore.
Putting my attorney hat on, I began to counsel them that this was a scam call. They fought my counsel that the government, at least then, doesn't make telephone threats to pay back taxes to avoid arrest. In particular, I could not get them to accept that it was a scam, and once they understood, I could not get them to ask the questions to gather evidence that might be useful for later prosecution. This elderly couple, in their prime, were highly accomplished individuals but as seniors, had lost whatever cognitive ability was required to protect themselves.
Friends of mine, and a couple who are both elderly emeritus professors, were subject to elder-scam, being asked to wire-transfer money to their grandchild, went through all the steps, but were stopped by their son who by accident caught wind of it. (They made the wise decision to give their son say over their finances).
I had the experience of sitting on a Federal Grand Jury wherein such actions were finally being prosecuted and listen to the evidence, and how easy it is to scam people in general, not just the elderly.
My less direct experience recently is that many of a much younger age, seem to suffer from similar cognitive failures that beset these elderly couples. Threats work: the ability to stand up to such behavior is absent. "Man-ing up" seems lacking.
Let’s sue the Sun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey,_Cheatem_%26_Howe
Interesting suggestion though. I bet an Apple Religion would be pretty successful. And the profit margins are likely higher than the Apple Card and hardware products.