Fake Apple Pay charge brings the classic tech support scam to your phone

iPhone users are being targeted in a new tech support scam, using a fake Apple Pay notification to trick users.

Tech support scams that use fake warnings to push victims into calling a phone number have been around for years, but this page has been designed specifically for phones.

Instead of a desktop warning claiming your computer has a virus, the scam imitates familiar iPhone features in an attempt to scam you.

What happens

A page opens on your phone and appears to show Apple Pay processing a $657 App Store payment. A spinner turns. “Face ID

• verifying identity” appears beneath the amount. There is a transaction ID, a padlock, and all the visual cues of a payment in progress.

A few seconds later, the story changes.

You get an alert saying your Apple ID is locked because of an unrecognized sign-in. A phone number appears under the instruction to call Apple Support immediately. When you open the transaction details, the payment is marked “Completed.” Then your phone begins speaking an alert about the unauthorized charge.

It’s all completely made up.

The page we analyzed contains no real Apple Pay transaction and no biometric verification. Instead, it uses hardcoded payment details, browser-generated speech, fake security warnings, and aggressive navigation tricks to get the victim to call the scammer.

The “Face ID” check isn’t real

The first screen is designed to make it look as though the phone itself is authorizing a payment.

In this sample, “Face ID

• verifying identity” is simply an HTML element displayed beside an icon. There is no Apple Pay request and no biometric-authentication call behind it.

Apple Pay can legitimately be used on websites, but a genuine payment begins when the merchant requests it. The system then immediately displays a payment sheet for the user to review and authenticate, as Apple’s guidelines specify.

Nothing like that happens here. The scam page has simply drawn its own imitation.

iPhone users are being targeted in a new tech support scam, using a fake Apple Pay notification to trick users.

Tech support scams that use fake warnings to push victims into calling a phone number have been around for years, but this page has been designed specifically for phones. Instead of a desktop warning claiming your computer has a virus, the scam imitates familiar iPhone features including Apple Pay, Face ID, and App Store payments.

It even uses the phone’s own text-to-speech capabilities and attempts to interfere with mobile navigation. What happens A page opens on your phone and appears to show Apple Pay processing a $657 App Store payment. A spinner turns. “Face ID

• verifying identity” appears beneath the amount. There is a transaction ID, a padlock, and all the visual cues of a payment in progress.

A few seconds later, the story changes. Now your Apple ID is supposedly locked because of an unrecognized sign-in. A phone number appears under the instruction to call Apple Support immediately. When you open the transaction details, the payment is marked “Completed.” Then your phone begins speaking an alert about the unauthorized charge. It’s alarming. It’s also completely made up.

The page we analyzed contains no real Apple Pay transaction and no biometric verification. Instead, it uses hardcoded payment details, browser-generated speech, fake security warnings, and aggressive navigation tricks to get the victim to call the scammer. The “Face ID” check isn’t real

The first screen is designed to make it look as though the phone itself is authorizing a payment. In this sample, “Face ID

• verifying identity” is simply an HTML element displayed beside an icon.