Payments asked for non-existent downloads

Apple officials are being summoned by the Japanese government this week in order to answer questions about billing at the iTunes Store, Agence France-Presse reports. People are being charged for downloads they never made, states an official from Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency, who also notes that incidents have been on the rise since fall 2009. There are at least 95 known cases in Japan so far, spanning five credit card companies.

While some victims have only been billed for a few hundred yen -- worth a few US dollars -- others have been asked to pay several hundred thousand yen, the equivalent of several thousand dollars. In one less extreme example, a woman who registered a credit card with the iTunes Store several years ago was recently charged several times, resulting in an overall bill of more than 100,000 yen, or $1,100. She is said to have gone without buying anything from iTunes in some time.

Japanese industry and communication ministries are also said to be joining the investigation, in part because of worries about personal data theft. In the meantime iTunes customers are being asked to watch their bills for suspicious items.

The iTunes Store makes it unusually easy to buy music, videos and apps, as once a person is logged into a account, purchases can be automatically billed to a credit card with no more than a single click or password entry.

by MacNN Staff