Smartycashback fraudulent charges on credit card through Apple Wallet on Dec 04, 2024.

Do you know if the subscription is through Apple App Store? Or is the subscription direct with Smarty Cash Back?

You can look for subscriptions here,

Request a refund for apps or content that you bought from Apple - Apple Support

It’s also possible the scammer subscribed directly.

If Smarty Cash Back uses an Automatic Billing Updater (ABU), the merchant will have your new number before you do.

The link to the SmartyCashBack website is available here with more information about cancelling and refund policy.

https://www.smartycashback.com/faq

Same thing happened to me. So annoying

mab2kor wrote:

I also got scammed, for spending a mere week in the US :D

I wrote to them, seekign refund!

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Hello, 

how come SmartyPlus got access to my Apple count & put me into Subscription and deduct 25$ also in January. this is a Mystery. 

You purchased something online and the website has a deal with SmartyCashBack to save money on your current order if you sign up for a subscription. That is how you got started with their subscription, and it was nothing more than clicking a button on the screen. They used the same card details that you used to make the online purchase. The date you received the charge is not the date the online purchase was made, because the subscription usually starts with a free trial and you could have made the purchase 30 days ago and it was just recently renewed.

Review your previous online purchases and continue to follow up with SmartyCashBack. This has nothing to do with Apple. Cancelling the SmartyPlus subscription can be done here. The email address used for the account is the same one used for the previous online purchase that was made.There is also information about deleting your account with them and their refund policy.

https://www.joinsmarty.com/help/how-do-i-cancel-my-account/l

Contact Smarty Cash Back, cancel your subscription and request a refund from them.

Read the information provided here:

https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Buying/Smartycashback-why-you-should-have-read-the-T-amp-Cs-and-how-to/td-p/2495876

Your bank is not being totally up front with you. The subscription is being billed to your card directly from them without any Apple involvement. You may have not known that you were entering into this subscription. Your bank also knows that simply changing the card number may not stop a recurring charge. It makes no difference if you add this card to your Wallet or not, since Apple is not billing you.

Your bank and the payment processor (VISA, Mastercard, etc) use an Automatic Billing Updater that automatically transfers recurring charges to a new card number. This is something only your bank can block and they usually require that you make every effort to contact the company yourself to cancel the charges.

https://paymentcloudinc.com/blog/account-updater/

If your bank fails to offer help in blocking this charge, you can further file a complaint with the CFPB. This is a government agency that will investigate your claim and reports to get a response from most companies in 15 days.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/

Please review the link also provided by Jeff Donald to verify that it cannot be cancelled by Apple. He is an expert in this field and can provide much more information than I can.

This just happened to me today on my kids phone and I called Apple Cash and they told me to change my password and passcode. They gave me the number to smartycash but no other help. My daughter never signed up she didn’t even have her phone at the time of the purchase. I don’t want to call smarty cause I feel like it’s a scam. Especially if I give more information. Just wish there was an easier process to not get this charge again.

Eop6850 wrote:

I been charge for the same amount without accept or subscribe to any of their websites or app or links

If your situation is anything like the others, you were unaware you signed up for the subscription when making an online purchases. You will see a popup on well known sites such as eBay, Kohls, Gap, etc, and it will say you can save even more. Users that click it don't know they have signed up for a free trial to a subscription in addition to their purchase. The free trial likely goes for 30 days before you will be billed for the subscription, so it is usually pretty easy to find the purchase on the same payment method where you see the charge from the website that prompted this free trial about a month ago.

In every case I have seen, this is not a subscription that is managed by Apple, so you will not see it when viewing your Subscriptions on your device and it will not show when attempting a refund on your device. There is nothing Apple can do in this case as you are free to make any purchase on a website you want without involving Apple. You will need to go to the link below to cancel your Smarty subscription. There are also links here to delete your account and review their refund policy.

https://www.joinsmarty.com/help/how-do-i-cancel-my-account/

If you are not able to get any resolution, you will need to dispute the charge with the bank of your payment method. They will need to specifically block those transactions and likely issue you a new card.

Update: I emailed customer support asking to have my membership cancelled and they actually straight up cancelled it. Nice.

Awesome! I don't fault you for not reading the 200 pages of Terms, we all do need to be careful on what we click though. There are many scams that profit just by users not knowing what they are clicking on.

Even for legitimate companies like Walmart, there stupid app has a pop up for their WalMart+ service that pops up anytime you use the app in the store and just by tapping a button that you think will make it go away, it signs you up for a year subscription to their service. They have my card details because I do like to use Walmart Pay so I don't have to use my physical card in a terminal, but I do have to be careful every time I open the app.

Tiff9876 wrote:

My daughter never signed up she didn’t even have her phone at the time of the purchase.

It would have been from a retailer that supports SmartyCashBack and that probably would have been 30 days ago. When the purchase on a supported site is made, they provide an option to receive cash back for free, but the fine print says it is a 30 day free trial that will become a subscription if not cancelled. Not having the phone at the time of purchase simply means that is when the subscription renewed, not when the initial free trial was actually started. It should not be that difficult to determine which online site where it was offered, Ebay is one but there are many others.

I was paying my AT&T statement yesterday and noticed an ad at the top of the screen stating get $15 cash back now. In very small letters, I read smartycashback. It would be easy to think AT&T was giving you $15 and fall victim to their free trial subscription.

peterpan1209 wrote:

How can we get $25 money back? It is riduculous app to steal my credit card account and chage me $25!

It is not the app where you are seeing the charge originate. If that was the case and it was an in-app purchase, then those are managed by Apple and the subscription would be easily cancelled and you would also be able to request a refund through Apple.

Your charge is most likely a subscription charge that you had inadvertently signed up for from a purchase that was made on another retailers website. For example, Ebay uses it constantly with a popup that says you can save more money and in the fine print it says you will be signed up for a subscription to SmartyCashBack and has been reported AT&T uses it as well. Many other retailers partner with SmartyCashBack also with the same promotion.

Just because they have an app does not mean Apple is responsible for the tactics used by those retailers and their partnership with SmartyCashBack. You would have received those charges even without an app. Jeff Donald provided the correct answer that you need to cancel that subscription and possibly request a refund directly with SmartyCashBack.