VERIFIEDBy Xavier Rivera· ·2 min read

Apple Blocks Over $11 Billion in App Store Fraud in Six Years

Apple blocked over $11 billion in fraudulent App Store transactions over the last six years, including more than $2.2 billion in 2025 alone. The company rejected millions of app submissions and accounts while deploying machine learning and human review to combat fraud at scale.

Apple Blocks Over $11 Billion in App Store Fraud in Six Years
TL;DRAI · 60 sec read

Apple blocked over $11 billion in fraudulent App Store transactions over the last six years. The company disclosed that it blocked more than $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent App Store transactions in 2025 alone.

In a Wednesday press release, Apple said it rejected over 2 million problematic app submissions last year. It blocked more than 1.1 billion fraudulent account creations, terminated 193,000 developer accounts due to fraud concerns, and rejected more than 138,000 developer enrollments. An additional 40.4 million customer accounts suspected of fraud and abuse were deactivated.

Last year Apple stopped more than 5.4 million stolen credit cards from being used and banned nearly 2 million user accounts. These figures represent a notable increase over previous years. In 2024, Apple blocked over $2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions, identified nearly 4.7 million stolen credit cards, and blocked over 1.6 million accounts from making further transactions.

"Apple utilizes both human review and advanced technology to identify and stop the use of stolen financial information," the tech giant said. "By leveraging machine learning, Apple teams build powerful models to accelerate fraud detection and quickly evaluate new deceptive tactics. These technologies also provide a comprehensive view of fraudulent activity across customer accounts, devices, and payment methods."

Apple's App Review team evaluated over 9.1 million app submissions in 2025, up from 7.7 million the prior year. The team rejected more than 443,000 for privacy violations, over 371,000 for being copycats or misleading apps, and more than 22,000 for containing hidden or undocumented features.

Nearly 59,000 apps were removed from the App Store last year for bait-and-switch tactics, almost triple the 17,000 removed throughout 2024. The company processed more than 1.3 billion ratings and reviews in 2025, blocking nearly 195 million fraudulent app reviews and ratings.

Apple prevented nearly 7,800 deceptive apps from appearing in search results and blocked 11,500 from App Store charts. It further detected and blocked 28,000 illegitimate apps on pirate storefronts. According to Apple, the App Store currently draws over 850 million weekly visitors across 175 storefronts worldwide.

The company advises customers who suspect suspicious activity in apps downloaded from the App Store to report it immediately at reportaproblem.apple.com.
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