Apple now refuses apps that charge exorbitant prices for in-app purchases

Apple has started refusing apps in the App Store that charge exorbitant prices on in-app purchases and subscriptions. From now on, developers who charge ‘irrationally high prices’ in the App Store will have to adjust their prices or offer more value in the app.

A developer received this week an email from Apple explaining that his app was no longer allowed in the App Store because it would overcharge for in-app subscriptions. In the email that the developer received, Apple states that the prices that are used must be in line with the value of the product. According to Apple, the developer can either adjust its prices or make its app contain more value for the user.

This new enforcement of the rules in the App Store comes after developer Kosta Eleftheriou revealed early this month that his own app and many other apps in the App Store are being actively cloned by scammers to extort money from unsuspecting users. by charging high prices for in-app purchases.

The methods by which customers were scammed, according to Eleftheriou, were always the same: buying fake reviews, stealing and using original marketing materials, and charging high prices for in-app purchases or in-app subscriptions to unsuspecting customers. On Twitter showed Eleftheriou notes that his app, FlickType, had many clones in the App Store and that many other developers have also fallen victim to these rogue practices.

Shortly after Eleftherious’s Twitter posts, Apple issued a statement to The Verge stating that it is intensively investigating reported cases of fraud in the App Store. The company also argued that by 2020 it had removed more than 500,000 developer accounts linked to fraud cases and was able to erase more than 60 million fake user reviews from the App Store.