iTunes Accounts For Sale

Some 50,000 illegal iTunes accounts are being offered for sale on Taobao, China’s largest retail website.

Prices for individual accounts range from one yuan to 200 ($30), and apparently thousands of accounts have already been sold during the past several months, according to the Global Times. Taobao says it takes no legal responsibility for the items sold and does not vouch for their authenticity.

The website told AFP is has taken “all reasonable and necessary measures to protect the rights of consumers.” Moreover, it has no plans to remove the ads until it receives a formal request to do so from Apple or anyone related to iTunes.

It’s assumed that hackers have gotten into foreign users’ iTunes accounts and stolen overseas credit card details in order to register iTunes accounts that are then put on sale.

Purchasers of the accounts are encouraged to use them for 24 hours only, probably because the real owners will figure out what is happening by then and cancel their credit cards.

Last summer Apple reinforced its iTunes security and advised users to contact financial institutions and change passwords if they think their accounts had been stolen.