We are still busy with active Scam apps in the App Store. In fact, they boast 500 million downloads and over $100 million in annual revenue. According to a report published by VPNcheck, these figures don’t even account for fraudulent apps identified through other sources. Although Avast’s list of fleeceware subscription apps states that the developers of these apps have made more than $365 million in total revenue, based on Sensor Tower data, they did not provide any details of Apple’s cut of these earnings.
Most of the scam apps on the list are entertainment apps like virtual musical instruments or utilities like flashlights and calculators. These kinds of apps can also pop up in your searches if you are looking for apps related to fortune-telling, photo or video editors, quiz-based games, tuners, volume boosters, scanners, etc. While these are some of the most common themes documented, there could be scam app makers plying their trade to other domains.
One way to easily spot such scams is to look at the rating breakdown for these apps. They will usually have a large number of paid-for 5-star reviews from reviewers with fake names. These happen over a specific period and are aimed at hiding the many legitimate low-rating reviews provided by actual users.
