The ad links to the following app, which I strongly recommend you do not try installing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/avcleaner-checker-organizer/id6478221332
I’d like to report this app and its developer to Apple to have it taken down, but I can’t find a way to do this. It looks like you aren’t allowed to leave reviews for apps you haven’t purchased, and Apple’s Feedback page has no way to report apps for review.
If anyone here knows where to send a report for scams like this, please let me know. I’d love to see this scammer in prison, but I’d be satisfied to just see his account shutdown.
Maybe report it to CISA? https://www.cisa.gov/report
“CISA provides secure means for constituents and partners to report incidents, phishing attempts, malware, and vulnerabilities…”
It may be that both these methods require you to have ‘purchased’ the app. You could install the app and then delete it before opening it (in which case it can’t do any harm due to iOS being so locked down) so that it appears in your list of purchased apps to report.
It looks like this is the case. The report link makes you pick an app from your purchase history in order to report it.
Update: I did just that. I “purchased” it (free app, but with $50/yr in-app subscription ). Then I left feedback through the link you provided (including the full text of the ad) and a one-star review saying pretty much the same thing.
Apple needs to take down the app, ban the developer, and refuse to pay any proceeds from its subscriptions. Anything advertised with criminal scare tactics like these demands a swift and severe response.
I’ll try that, but it’s being displayed by a Zynga game (Words with Friends), and they have a reputation for not being responsive to customer comments.
I left feedback to Apple for “Words With Friends 2” (the game), but I highly doubt that will accomplish anything.
That’s the app that you’d report to Apple. Hopefully Zynga wants its customers to be happy with their ads rather than bothered by them. I’m not sure it’s not the app being advertised that’s most at fault really - they just paid for an ad on an advertising service that Zynga is using. Zynga should be in charge and take responsibility for the ads they display in their apps.
No company just pays for “an ad” and doesn’t get a chance to review and approve its content. And nobody advertises a product they weren’t paid to advertise.
Anyone who does business with an ad agency so unethical that they’d resort to obvious phishing techniques doesn’t deserve to be in business. If you hire a criminal, you are legally responsible for what he does on your behalf.
There aren’t enough prisons to hold all the scammers who would be busted if anyone was seriously trying to stop the army of thieves and malcontents that has taken over the internet.
). Then I left feedback through the link you provided (including the full text of the ad) and a one-star review saying pretty much the same thing.