Apple Computer Customer Support Scams

[UPDATED 10/5/20]
WARNING: Many TDS Readers have contacted us in April, 2019 to say that they are getting scam calls that appear to be from a real Apple Computer tech support number but the calls are scammers!  Here are two voice messages left on victim’s phones by an automated scam message.  The first one was left on April 15, 2019.  The recipient is asked to call 888-254-7555.  Lots of people reporting this number as unsafe!


“Do not use your apple devices until you speak with apple support representative. Please refrain using any financial activity on your devices. In order to speak with an Apple representative right now press one or call on 518-730-1561. Thanks.”  Many people have identified this phone number as an Apple Customer Support scam on the site 800notes.com!

And on May 28, 2019 a woman contacted us to say that she got a call from one of Apple’s legitimate numbers — 800-694-7466.  The caller left a message and told her to call Apple support back at a different phone number: 360-205-9659.  According to MANY online posts, this 360-205-9659 phone number is a scam number.  Check out the comments about this scam number on 800notes.com.


In late August, 2017 we published an article about the many fake Amazon Customer Support phone numbers showing up on forums all over the Internet. (Visit: Amazon Customer Support…NOT!) Most importantly, Google is being manipulated so that these fake phone numbers are showing up high in search results.   People who call these numbers are victimized by criminals in multiple ways, especially financially.

 

Since posting our Amazon article in late August, we’ve found 26 phony numbers.  However, on September 17 while researching another new fake Amazon phone number we came across this Google result below.

Apparently, criminals are promoting the phone number 888-365-0444 as more than just Amazon Customer Support.  They are also promoting it as an HP Support number and an Apple Support number.  The link at AlienVault.com really caught our attention.  So we Googled “Apple customer service phone number” for just the past week.  We were startled by what we found…

In all, we were able to locate 10 fake Apple customer service numbers and a fake website being pushed out to consumers and showing up high in Google searches.  If these phony numbers are being used by criminals like the Amazon phone numbers, the fake support staff will trick consumers into giving control of their computers and Apple accounts to criminals who will steal personal information and make purchases using the consumer’s account.

 

The following phone numbers are FRAUDULENT Apple Customer Service Numbers:

REPORTED in 2017:
877-317-7420     866-952-1084     855-855-3844     855-654-1222
855-401-6900     844-239-7666     800-813-0692     800-786-0581
800-582-2401     800-580-2401    844-245-6784      844-523-5140
888-513-4666     844-852-8093     877-368-1508     877-467-0649
888-204-1666
800-235-3083    888-310-7097     844-202-0908    844-235-6222
800-484-0081    833-802-0003     855-834-1333    877-407-9251
877-910-4205     855-888-3966      888-958-7442     800-582-2401
800-608-5461     855-834-1333     855-454-6189     844-870-4017
888-226-1422     800-676-2775     877-769-4179     800-726-0294
REPORTED in 2018
800-240-0925     800-460-9661     800-605-8632     800-856-1215
800-942-2851      844-210-3666      844-247-5325      844-804-4011
844-870-4017      855-332-6777      855-855-4898      866-866-1752
877-407-9251      877-871-6857      888-316-6111      888-500-2688
888-600-7030      888-887-7208      888-958-7442    888-883-9566
321-233-5007     800-204-4427     800-638-2441     843-903-1833
844-324-6260     844-776-9606     844-780-6762     844-850-8247
855-273-5444     855-410-2465     855-697-6111       855-925-7090
877-223-5513     877-885-4824      888-224-2928    888-810-8519

805-554-0313     800-435-3736
(These numbers were reported to us by a TDS reader.
See Linda’s story below.)
REPORTED in 2019:
877-948-3573
(This number was reported to us by a TDS reader. He reported that the caller had an Indian accent, saying that his “iTunes and iCloud accounts
were hacked 17 times by hackers in Russia and in Turkey”)
888-254-7555

REPORTED in 2020:
On Aug. 8 a TDS reader got a call from “Apple Support.”  The caller (who had an accent) told him that their systems had noticed many uses of his Apple ID from overseas. Since the man hadn’t been overseas, they both agreed that it wasn’t likely that the man was making those connections.  However, the Apple account holder said he wasn’t near his laptop or desktop at the time. (Not true! He was trying to play with the scammer.)  He got the Apple Support scammer to agree to call him again in 3 hours. The scammer said “You will be there in 3 hours?”  The man said he would try, but that he would be more comfortable if he was given a callback number. After some hemming and hawing, the “Apple Customer Support” fellow gave him this phone number: 669-334-9869.
 Reported to TDS  on Oct. 5, 2020: 850-538-9712

 

  New fraudulent Apple look-alike domains are appearing on the Internet to trick people into thinking they are Apple Customer Support.  They are not!  These include:
appletechsupportnumber[.]net
applesupportcentre[.]com
applephonesupport[.]com
applemacsupportnumber[.]com
appletechnicalsupportnumbers[.]com
apple-support.applehelp[.]support
iphonesupportnumber[.]com
iphonecustomerservice[.]org
liveapplesupport[.]com


There are also generic “customer care” websites that claim to offer support phone numbers for many services.  We found fraudulent information about Apple on these sites, making the entire website suspicious.  We do not recommend using them!  They include:
customerhelp247[.]com
instantcustomercare[.]com
icustomerservicenumber[.]com

 

There are many REAL Apple help phone numbers which you can see when you visit: https://www.apple.com/contact/

These real Apple computer support numbers include…

Consumer line: 800–692–7753
U.S. iPod, Mac and iPad technical support: 800–275–2273
U.S. iPhone technical support: 800–694–7466

IMPORTANT UPDATE (1/17/18)
On January 17, 2018 we heard from one of our readers.  He informed us that he received several calls from Apple Computer’s Consumer phone number. He says…  “I responded to a message to update my phone.  Then I received several phone calls from 800 692 7753.  The message was my phone and computer were hacked and I needed help.  On my computer they took me to an Apple supporter site (with an other word added.) They viewed my screen and found viruses and malware.  They said I urgently needed a fix.  They quoted a price of $ 400.  I said I would go to an Apple store but they said that was not needed and they could fix it online.  I declined and checked with my friends.  They sounded like they were from India and there were many voices in the background.”
The criminals calling this man spoofed Apple’s phone number so the call appeared to come from the legitimate Apple number.  Apple Computer will never call you to say your phone or computer has been hacked.

 

WARNING: The is a fake Apple website that is appearing in Google searches and, at first glance, it appears legitimate.  The domain name is applehelp.support.  Look at the links returned in this Google search for this domain:

In their effort to make this domain seem even more legitimate, they have added a sub-domain called “apple-support” to produce the domain apple-support.applehelp.support.  If you look in the very last link in the graphic above, you’ll see “apple” mentioned 4 times and “mac” twice!  But it is all a lie!  This is NOT Apple’s website or Apple’s customer support number.  A WHOIS lookup of Apple.com shows that it is registered to Apple, Inc of Cupertino, California since 1987.   However, if you run a WHOIS lookup of applehelp.support you find that it was registered in October, 2015 through a private proxy service of Arizona and the website title is “Hostmonster.”  Don’t believe this phony-baloney website!

SPECIAL UPDATE:
In May, 2018 we heard from a woman who looked online for a Gmail Customer Service number and found one of the phone numbers listed above: 855-925-7090.   She described talking to a man with an Indian accent and was almost fooled into paying $150 for a service to do something with her account.  We searched the Internet and found two more phone numbers being used by scammers pretending to be Google customer support numbers:  888-653-8185  and 855-925-7086

 

 

UPDATE 7/16/18 with Linda’s Story:
In July, 2018 we were contacted by a grandmother named Linda.  This is her story to our readers…

“I am frustrated that I got caught up with this as I am usually pretty cautious. My grandson was vacationing with us in Myrtle Beach and Saturday night his iPhone 7 had no service and no bars suddenly.  The next morning it wasn’t better but had some use in between. So we called his parents back home and they called Apple, told them what happened, got a case # and told us to call and tell them we had a case #.  His parents told us to call 1-800-MYAPPLE.  Unfortunately my grandson didn’t know how to interpret that so he googled it on his phone and got the 805 area code number [SCAM PHONE NUMBER: 805-554-0313]. That’s how this idiot got ahold of us.  He told us to go to a local grocery store, gas station, etc and buy an iTunes card for $100 and call him back. I didn’t feel things were right so I called my son who suggested that we call the 1-800-MYAPPLE number again. My grandson called and we got the same guy (however I did not realize at the time that my grandson didn’t really call the 1800-MYAPPLE number! ) so when he called it again it was the scammer. He started giving us different names and he had a very Indian accent. We kept asking for someone who spoke english to the point where he was mocking us. My husband was in the hospital here while on vacation, so I was already stressed and was starting to flip out and ask for a manager. I am sure the same man came back on the phone and was giving me a hard time again.

This time I asked for his name and phone number and that is when the 800 number came up. He gave me 800-435-3736 [ANOTHER SCAM PHONE NUMBER!] After 1 hr 33 minutes I finally hung up on him only for him to keep calling me back all day and night. He even called today while we were at the hospital and I took the call thinking it was the trailer repair people. I ranted at him again and finally hung up. He said he didn’t take the iTunes card since we still had it BUT he took the number. The day before he had asked me how I paid for it so he could “refund me” and so he wanted my charge card. Fortunately I did not give him any of that information BUT I was afraid he could trace the information from the iTunes card number. I called Discover Card and my card has only been used for what I have charged to it.  My son then called the original scam number and talked to 5 or 6 different people (they gave different names but he was sure it was the same scumbag) and on the 6th phone call the man hung up on my son.

We called the scam number again today and told him that we had contacted the police and gave all the information including recordings of all the phone calls (which we didn’t, but we wanted him to squirm a little). We didn’t try to see if the iTunes gift card still has a balance – we’re sure it doesn’t!  What amazes me is that we were able to still call there to that scam number. The other thing that is happening to me on my cell phone for several months is someone is calling and leaving a message about helping me with credit card balances. When I return call to the number, it is a private person who INSISTS that his cell phone shows no calls to mine. Somehow someone is using his cell phone to show that his number is calling but it is not him. When I get one of these calls now and contact this poor fellow, he texts me back to say that he is not calling me. I don’t understand why it cannot be reported to his cell phone carrier or the police that his number is being used by a scammer for fraudulent purposes?”

Good question Linda!  Our government’s response to online fraud is terribly inadequate.  For example, WHY do our laws allow certain technologies to be used that make it not only possible, but EASY for fraudsters to target Americans?  For example, WHY do the Phone Carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint make it possible for phone numbers to be spoofed?  If phone calls are being routed to India, why not inform the consumer in a brief message that this call is connecting to India, or China, or wherever?  We need better laws to protect consumers AND insist that our own tech companies do a better job to protect U.S. citizens!