Aug 24, 2010 07:30 GMT  ·  By

iTunes customers continue to accuse fraudulent attacks, with some reporting thousands of dollars worth of purchases made in their name.

One affected customer reportedly told Tech Crunch, “My account was charged over $4700. I called security at PayPal and was told a large number of iTunes store accounts were compromised.”

According to the report, his email was filled with almost 50 receipts from PayPal, each representing a $99.99 purchase.

Searching the web by public status updates on Facebook, the site was able to uncover more people with the same problem.

One person says, “Darn…what a day! Someone hacked into my itunes account and bought a crap load of downloads and emptied out my paypal account…”

“…Paypal is very cooperative but there is just about no way to get ahold of itunes. I did call paypal and they assured me that they had contacted itunes and it was going to be taken care of in my favor,” this user said.

According to several other reports, both PayPal and Apple are aware of the issues.

The two companies are cooperating to increase the security of their customers. PayPal is even issuing refunds.

Apple, for its part, is advising iTunes users to change their passwords immediately.

While many have labeled this as an iTunes bug, the problem actually lies somewhere else, according to an Apple spokesman - customers unknowingly giving away their credit card information.

This can happen as a result of a “phishing” attack.

"iTunes is always working to prevent fraud and enhance password security for all of our users," spokesman Jason Roth said.

"But if your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes, we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about canceling the card and issuing a charge-back for any unauthorized transactions,” Roth added.

“We also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately," the Apple spokesman outlined.