iTunes Scam Unveiled

Denver White, a part-time DJ who resides in the UK, has become embroiled in a massive iTunes scam that saw him sell more tracks than Madonna.

According to NME, White and 11 others were involved in a scam where they would use stolen credit cards to purchase White’s music on iTunes and Amazon, then White would try and collect the cash. They would upload the music through digital distributors like SongCast, CD Baby and Tunecore.

They managed to purchase up to £1million worth of White’s tracks, however, they were not smart enough to stop when the heat was on. When Tunecore and iTunes cottoned on to the scam, they stopped the royalty payments and withheld £113,000.

Prosecutor Helen Malcolm QC informed the court of what happened from here:

Shortly after they were stopped, Tunecore started to get a number of calls and emails from a man calling himself Daniel Thompson demanding outstanding royalties. What he did not know was that Tunecore knew there was a fraud and they were in touch with US law enforcement. Tunecore hoped to persuade him to identify himself by persuading him to come to New York to collect his royalties, and offered him free air tickets.

At that stage Thompson said that the tickets would have to be sent in the name of Denver White. He gave Denver White’s real address for the tickets to be posted to and (this) led authorities to uncover all 11 defendants.

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