App Store Continues to Host Scammy Apps
A couple months ago, we covered several suspicious apps that were in Apple’s iOS App Store. One mimicked the new “Threads, an Instagram app,” and others were unethical loan apps. At the time we published the article, Apple had removed the apps following public backlash.
We wish we could tell you that the App Store was perfectly free of scammy apps, but unfortunately such is not the case.
Over the past week, several more sketchy apps have come to light. Again, some of them are illegitimate loan apps that often seem to particularly target iPhone users in India. The apps mimic the names of legitimate financial institutions, but are reported not actually connected in any way with those companies.
Babu:
The @AppStore in India is dancing to the tune of fake loan apps
When you search for “instant loan”: The Ad & all 5 top results are of Fraud Loan Apps.
Apple did remove them after more than a week and many downloads, but new ones reached the top finance charts just days later.
I wonder how many Apple guidelines points this app is infringing 🤷♂️. More than this, it was released on 20 Dec 2022 and still active.
It looks like a to-do app but really offers pirated movies.
This Bitcoin wallet app is fake, according to the developer of the real Samourai app for Android. (The company doesn’t even make any iOS apps at all.)
It has been in the App Store since July 21, in spite of being reported multiple times.
Previously:
- Scam Authenticator App Steals QR Codes
- Swapping App Data After Review
- The Top PDF Reader in the Mac App Store
- Most Fraudulent Apps Still on the App Store
- The App Store Isn’t Catching the Most Egregious Scams
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Apple need to care about this and it’s amazing that they clearly don’t or they would have made more progress over the years of all these scams existing on the App Store.
Surely they will start caring when these scams are used to shoot down their suggestion that security and safety is the reason the App Store needs to be allowed to carry on charging the commissions they do.
Apple not giving a sh*t about the amount of crap on their App Store is the biggest disappointment in Apple since I first bought one of their products in the 1990s.
Never thought it would come to this - but hey! Subscription revenue is up big time so go figure!
"This Bitcoin wallet app is fake, according to the developer of the real Samourai app for Android."
As if there are Bitcoin-anythings that aren't scams XD
"Surely they will start caring when these scams are used to shoot down their suggestion that security and safety is the reason the App Store needs to be allowed to carry on charging the commissions they do."
Now that the DMA in the EU has gone through I think Apple has realised the game is over. Why expend any energy on a lost battle? The App store will only get worse from here on out.
I'm a developer of open source 2FA app - 2FAS. We've published our app under GPL3 on GitHub at the beginning of this year. It took some time, but about a month ago one guy from Vietnam did publish shameless copy of 2FAS. Not only does it use our graphical assets (he just changed red to blue), but he added in-app purchase, and you can't do anything in the app without buying a scammy subscription. Oh, there's also a "rate me" functionality, of course. Provided developer name doesn't match company name. Even the app icon is just old Google Authenticator icon rotated right to left with lines instead of dots. One would assume that it won't pass the App Store review. How could it? Well...
In the end no attribution to 2FAS was given or mandatory source code published under GPL3. The only mentions of 2FAS are inside the app's bundle. We've reached to Apple and done multiple reports, yet the app is not only still available, but it was updated yesterday...
I mean, 6 years of development and you can't execute your rights, which are obvious and non-debatable. It's not an app store, it's a disaster.
@Kristoffer. Many app stores should mean that Apple will have to compete for business. Providing best in class apps would be a good way to compete for customers. Providing scammy apps would not.
