Apple, the world’s largest company, is facing a class action lawsuit filed by a group of disgruntled cryptocurrency investors claiming to have lost funds due to a phishing app.
According to a report by Courthouse News Service, a media outlet that shares information on litigation, hackers hacked the tech giant’s app store to install a phishing app called “Toast Plus”, which looks like a crypto wallet that encourages users to install a crime portal on their devices. used.
The app was designed to look like a version of the popular crypto wallet Toast Wallet, but at the end of the day it turned out that there was no connection between the two apps.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Hadona Diep by Joshua Whitaker of Baltimore law firm Aldelphi Law, alleges that Apple was responsible for victims’ losses because it did not properly review the app before putting it on the App Store and allowed malicious apps to operate.
“While the App Store has terms and conditions, including limitations of liability, these terms and conditions are the result of adherence as consumers have no other practical way to access apps for iPhones and iPads if they are not using the App Store; therefore these terms and conditions do not apply to this case…
Since Toast Plus is not a real app but rather a tool for fraud commission, any existing contract that includes it as a subject is void and void.”
According to the report, Plaintiff downloaded the app to his iPhone in March 2020 and believed it was a version of Toast Wallet because of its “almost identical” logo. Diep linked his private XRP key and security phrase to Toast Plus, but later discovered that all his crypto assets were lost and his account was deleted.
“Plaintiff believed Toast Plus was a version of a well-known cryptocurrency wallet, Toast Wallet, as their names were similar and the logo used for the app on the App Store was the same or nearly identical.”
The plaintiff discovered in August that he was the victim of a phishing program that appeared to be a legitimate crypto wallet. This unfortunate download cost him $5,000. But Diep is the only victim of this scam. This seems to be a recurring issue, given that many users have shared similar complaints. Users whose accounts were emptied by scammers describe the situation as “depressing”.
Plaintiff is seeking damages from Apple and all victims for its negligence. Court documents show that, in addition to compensation, plaintiffs also sought to prevent Apple from allowing similar fraudulent apps to run on its app stores in the future.