Apple Pay users need to review their statements looking for unauthorized charges

For many iPhone users, contactless payment feature Apple Pay is a useful and quick way to settle up at the register when checking out of a store. Tapping your iPhone on the point-of-sale terminal and having your identity verified by Face ID, Touch ID, or via Passcode, results in that glorious "ding" sound indicating that your payment has been approved. And while Apple's cut from Apple Pay is believed to be only .15% of the transaction amount, volume makes it a worthy contributor to Apple's top-line gross.

In 2022, Apple Pay reportedly generated $1.9 billion for the tech giant, a number that more than doubled to a estimated $4 billion last year. That's not bad considering that the company earns only 15 cents on a $100 transaction. However, there is an issue with Apple Pay in Hungary as users have noticed unauthorized charges on the bank cards they have connected to Apple Pay. Some users have had multiple transactions show up as charges on their cards even though no transactions were made.

Local bank Raiffeisen released a statement on Wednesday saying, "We inform our customers that due to a technical problem with an external partner, the bank cards of some of our customers may have been incorrectly charged by Apple. Our colleagues have contacted Apple officials, and the problem is being resolved. Thank you for your patience."

MBH Bank blamed Apple as you can see in its statement: "Due to an external technical error, the Apple application store incorrectly charged some users' bank cards on the afternoon of June 26, which also affected some MBH Bank customers. Our colleagues immediately reported the problem to Apple and took the necessary steps. We will inform our customers about the crediting of erroneous transactions later. We also thank our customers for their patience."

Most of the complaints seem to be about past transactions and canceled subscriptions that are ringing up on Apple Pay users' bank cards for a second time. While the problem has been limited to Apple Pay users in Hungary at this stage, you might want to go through the statements of any bank card you have linked with Apple Pay just to make sure that this problem hasn't been imported into the U.S. or the country that you live in.

If you do see a charge that you believe to be a duplicate, do not hesitate to contact your bank using the phone number that is on your physical card.