How to Report Bad Apps and Scams in App Store on iPhone – Guide
While there’s no denying the fact that Apple’s App Store policy is pretty strict, it has loopholes. By exploiting these loopholes and circumventing the rules, scammers never fail to launch rogue applications and extract money from users. Until now, you could do nothing but put these obscure apps aside and wait for Apple to remove them from the App Store. But now that has changed for the better, thanks to the introduction of a new ‘Report a problem’ button on the App Store on iOS 15. It allows you to directly report fraud and scam apps on the Apple App Store on your iPhone and iPad. let me show you how to red flag of fraudulent apps on your iOS device.
How to Report Fraudulent Apps in the App Store on iPhone and iPad (2021)
Before going through the step-by-step process, let’s find out what separates the new ‘Report a problem’ button from the oldest reports feature. In addition, we will discuss the availability of this feature and How to enable it right now on your iPhone. With that said, let’s dive in headfirst.
What’s New ‘Report a problem’ Button on the App Store?
It is noteworthy that previously the “Report a Problem” button was buried in the Games / Apps tab in the App Store. By touching the button, The App Store would take you to a website where you could choose from four options – Frankly speaking, these options were there to appease users and make numbers, as they didn’t provide a clear way to report a scam or invalid app. Even worse, the ‘Report suspicious activity’ option would redirect users to Apple support, which was quite annoying, to say the least. The Apple App Store now allows you to directly report an issue with every free app that has in-app purchases. Notably, you also have separate options to report not only scams, but also offensive, illegal and abusive content. From a user perspective, it’s a much better implementation. Now, I wonder why it took so long for Apple to make such a nice change. Are there still any caveats? Sadly yes. From now on, the ‘Report a problem’ button it is only available in the United States. This means that if you live somewhere else in the world, you can’t do much against rogue apps. And well, that’s a shame, considering how much the word “Security” is touted in Apple’s advertising campaigns. But don’t worry, there is a workaround that will allow you to test this functionality even if you live in countries outside the US.
Report fraudulent app and abusive content on the App Store
Now, select the preferred option according to your needs and click Next. For the purpose of this guide, I will choose the fourth option that allows you to report a scam or fraud.
How to Get the new ‘Report a problem’ option from the App Store outside the US
Although there is no confirmation on the release of this newly added feature outside the US, you can access it right now through an old hack. As you might have guessed, you need to create an Apple ID in the US or change the App Store country/region to the US. I will suggest that you choose the latter as it is a simpler workaround. To change the App Store country on iOS 15, go to Settings -> your profile icon -> Media & Shopping -> View Account -> Country / Region. After that, tap Change country or region and enter a US address along with a phone number. After changing country, open the App Store and go to the information section of a free app that also offers in-app purchases. Then check the ‘Report a problem’ option. If it doesn’t show up up immediately restart your iPhone.
Reasons for Apple’s Failure to Stop Fake App Store Apps
Without going into the bush, I’d like to point out that Apple employed only 500 human app reviewers, compared to Google’s 20,000 content moderators. While Facebook has 15,000 content moderators and Twitter has hired 2,200 reviewers to control the content. Considering how big the App Store is, Apple needs to have a larger team of human app reviewers to avoid large-scale scams. When there is so much emphasis on increasing security and privacy, the App Store deserves better protection against fraud. It’s inexplicable why the Cupertino giant is so passive on that front.
Report fraud and app scams on iPhone and iPad
This is How to directly report scams and abusive apps in the Apple App Store on iPhone. Though only time will tell how effective this is. feature will prove to be, I think it’s more user friendly compared to the previous implementation. In addition, it would also be interesting to see whether or not Apple takes serious action against the reports. By the way, what’s your take on this new app report feature? Do you find this more useful? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
Final note
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