Chinese consumer group demands Apple compensate stolen Apple ID owners

The China Consumer Association is calling on Apple to fully compensate people who lost money as a result of stolen iCloud accounts, arguing the company is downplaying a recent security breach.

"Apple should not shift the blame, play down its own safety issues and divert consumers' attention," the group said according to Reuters. The issue is said to be generating heavy media attention, ranking as one of the most popular topics on social network Weibo.

In apologizing for the incident earlier this week, Apple claimed that a "small number of our users' accounts were accessed through phishing scams where two-factor authentication was not enabled," placing responsibility on the victims. Affected people had money stolen from their Alipay accounts, and Apple noted that it saw a surge in "false and fraudulent refund claims trying to take advantage of this incident."

Apple declined to comment further on the Reuters report, referring back to its earlier comments, in which it noted that it was talking to "relevant consumer agencies and listening to customer feedback about those changes."

Apple has yet to say exactly how many people were impacted by the matter, and how much money was lost. Social media posts, though, suggest that some people lost hundreds of dollars.

26 Comments

wood1208 2930 comments · 10 Years

About 6 years ago

How in a world Apple's fault if user don't read user agreement. Use 2-factor authentication, don't use appleid to log into shady sites,Use Apple Pay. But, Apple is not Chinese company so why not skim ? Such incident brings out fraudulent claims and lawyers to benefit,.

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

Mhob said:

Apple needs to make the Horses drink. 2FA should no longer be an opt-in. It should be required.

On the Apple discussion forums there’s a constant stream of posts asking how to turn off 2 factor authentication because it’s inconvenient. When told they cannot they go ballistic. The ‘horses’ are never satisfied with anything.

So these people fell for phishing scams, didn’t care about their account security, and now want Apple to make them whole? I thought crap like this only happens in the U.S. where everybody is a victim and a survivor of someone or some corporation.

GHammer 52 comments · 6 Years

Time to appease the Chinese. Apple is great at this.

linkman 1040 comments · 11 Years

Having Apple pay for people being victims of phishing would be like banks repaying those victimized by Nigerian 419 scams.