Apple has just launched a range of new iPhones, including a foldable handset, just as you decide it is time to replace your own ageing mobile. But you balk at the £1,199 price tag for the cheapest of the new options. Searching online for a better price with the words “cheap”, “iPhone” and “deal”, you come across a website which offers an iPhone 18 Pro for a couple of hundred pounds less than the Apple site.
You pay for the new phone via a bank transfer and wait for it to arrive. But the website is a fraud - one of hundreds set up in the days before the new Apple phones were announced – and is designed to scam money out of people eager to get their hands on one of the new handsets. Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, the company’s first foldable phone, on Wednesday, as well as two new iPhone 18 Pro models.
At the same time, criminals were building up networks of fake sites. Security researchers found a large spike in the number of scam sites registered with “Apple” and “iPhone”, among other keywords, in their domain names. It is expected that the number will proliferate into the hundreds.
Alexandre François, who investigates scams for the intelligence company WhoisXML API, says the days before and after the announcement of the phones typically see a glut of domain names being registered by criminals. Some are then developed into phishing sites in order to dupe people. The content of a developed site will look convincingly realistic as fraudsters frequently use AI to mimic genuine retailers.
One site found by François, an iPhone Pro Max, in three different colours, was advertised with claims of an “all-day battery”. The release of technical specifications following the launch allows fraudsters to build more convincing websites. François says it then “becomes much easier to convince people that what they are looking at is a real iPhone”.
The sites may also claim to offer early access to the devices, as well as cheaper prices. The new iPhone 18 Pro starts at £1,199 officially, while the 18 Pro Max at £1,299, so expect the scam sites to quote prices substantially lower. As with many scams, fraudsters may give people a deadline to buy – such as a few hours – to encourage them to abandon caution in a bid to land a bargain.
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