An Apple Inc AAPL smartphone user, Phillipe Christodoulou, lost over $1 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) after he downloaded an application from the iPhone’s App Store, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
What Happened: Christodoulou is angry at the Tim Cook-led company after losing 17.1 BTC to the fraudulent app, according to the Post.
The iPhone user suffered a loss of nearly $1.01 million as per BTC's trading price of $59,194.26 at press time.
The bitcoins were reportedly lost after Christodoulou downloaded an app from the App store to check his bitcoin balance last month.
See also: How to Buy Bitcoin (BTC)
Christodoulou searched for “Trezor” in the App Store, which brought up a result that included a logo that bore resemblance to the one used by the namesake cryptocurrency hardware wallet maker, as per the Post.
After downloading the app from the App Store, which was rated five stars, he lost his life savings in less than a second.
Christodoulou expressed anger at the Cupertino, California-based iPhone maker. He said, “They betrayed the trust that I had in them.”
“Apple doesn’t deserve to get away with this.”
Why It Matters: An Apple spokesperson said that App Store is the “most secure app marketplace in the world,” reported the Post.
“In the limited instances when criminals defraud our users, we take swift action against these actors as well as to prevent similar violations in the future,” said the spokesperson.
See Also: Best Cryptocurrency Wallets
Apple reportedly acknowledged other cryptocurrency scams on App Store but didn't reveal a number.
United Kingdom-based Coinfirm, a company that specializes in cryptocurrency regulations, said that fake apps on Apple and Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG subsidiary Google’s app stores are common.
According to Coinfirm, five people have reported cryptocurrency stolen by the fake Trezor app on iOS worth a total of $1.6 million. On Android, the losses totaled $600,000 in cryptocurrency.
Trezor itself does not have a mobile application. A company spokesperson said it had been informing Apple and Google for years about fake apps posing as its product, reported the Post.
This month, a cryptocurrency user was defrauded of 10 BTC, now worth nearly $591,000 after he fell victim to a scammer pretending to be Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc TSLA.
Price Action: Apple shares closed 1.23% lower at $119.90 on Tuesday.
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