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

Over the past six years, Apple has prevented more than $11 billion worth of fraudulent transactions on its App Store. The company reported blocking over $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent App Store transactions during 2025 by itself.

In a press release issued on Wednesday, the tech giant noted that it turned away more than 2 million questionable app submissions in the past year. It also stopped more than 1.1 billion attempts to create fraudulent accounts, ended 193,000 developer accounts linked to fraud, and declined over 138,000 developer enrollment requests. In addition, Apple deactivated 40.4 million customer accounts believed to be involved in fraud or abuse.

Last year Apple stopped more than 5.4 million stolen credit cards from being used and banned nearly 2 million user accounts.

During 2025, the firm prevented more than 5.4 million stolen credit cards from being used for purchases and shut down nearly 2 million user accounts engaged in suspicious behavior. These numbers show a clear rise compared with earlier periods. For instance, in 2024 Apple had blocked over $2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions, identified nearly 4.7 million stolen credit cards, and stopped over 1.6 million accounts from completing further purchases.

"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."

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.

Apple's App Review team examined over 9.1 million app submissions throughout 2025, an increase from 7.7 million the year before. Of those reviewed, more than 443,000 were rejected due to privacy violations, over 371,000 for copying other apps or using misleading descriptions, and more than 22,000 for including hidden or undocumented capabilities.

Nearly 59,000 apps were pulled from the App Store last year because of bait-and-switch practices, nearly triple the 17,000 removed in all of 2024. On the review manipulation side, the company handled more than 1.3 billion ratings and reviews in 2025 while blocking nearly 195 million that were fraudulent.

Apple kept nearly 7,800 misleading apps out of search results, barred 11,500 from appearing in App Store charts, and identified and removed 28,000 unauthorized apps from pirate storefronts. According to Apple, the App Store currently draws over 850 million weekly visitors across 175 storefronts worldwide. The company urges customers who notice suspicious activity in apps obtained from the App Store to report it right away at reportaproblem.apple.com.