Taobao.com, China's biggest auction site, has removed thousands of fake iTunes accounts sold by third party merchants on its website after news broke last week exposing the fraud.

      "We received some complaints from customers that bought the accounts in question, and in the name of protecting our customers we decided to take all the listings purporting to sell existing accounts down," said John Spelich, VP of International Corporate Affairs at parent group Alibaba.

      Last Friday, GlobalTmes.com brought global media attention to the site for selling around 50,000 Apple iTunes accounts linked to stolen, overseas-based credit cards. Selling from 1 yuan (US$0.15) to 200 yuan (US$30) a piece, the accounts were 'good' for $200 worth of iTunes purchases.

      But suspiciously, the product description advised buyers to make all iTunes transactions within 24 hours of purchasing off Taobao.com. One of the merchants suggested to GlobalTimes that the accounts had been stolen.

      At the time Spelich told PCMag that Alibaba could not take action to remove the fake accounts until it had received official word from Apple.

      However today the iTunes accounts had disappeared from the site. According to a statement obtained today by GlobalTimes.com, Alibaba is "in communication with Apple" and was considering adding the illegal accounts to Taobao's blacklist of banned products, which includes stolen iTunes gift cards sold in 2009.

Source from PCMag