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Our app is getting cloned by scammers on App Store, what do you think about this?
by
Kevin Archer
https://twitter.com/IM_Kevin_Archer/status/1495005736677556224?s=20&t=yRhJGHIevfNceyeIDlhY1w
It happens to almost every business out there .. the bread and butter of some software houses is to clone others .. Just put any name (Airbnb, Uber, or anything) you can think of on google +clone and see the results. It's part of the game unfortunately and we have to deal with it.
Your best bet is to file a copyright infringement claim: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstorenotices
If you know someone inside Apple, they can help.
But this kind of sh*t happens all the time. Even worse, I've seen cases where bad actors not only rip off entire apps, they then go out a buy thousands of fake reviews to rank highly in the app store. Even worse, many of these copycats are scams where the user starts off with a free trial and then gets billed an absurdly high subscription if they forget to cancel. And guess where the money goes? Into Apple's pocket. And then the "developer" takes the profits and re-invests in more fake reviews to drown out the legitimate 1-star reviews that say the app is a scam.
I worked at a small app development shop for a few years, and we got ripped off all the time, Apple never cared. We even submitted evidence of the copycats and fake reviews. The only thing that ever happened was one time, Apple removed some (but not most) of the fake reviews of one scammer app.
I'm sorry for your troubles, I hope you have more luck than we did.
See: https://9to5mac.com/2022/01/11/developer-exposes-another-multimillion-dollar-scam-app-on-the-app-store/
Thank you, you have described so accurately what is happening on App Store at the moment. I really hope Apple will do something, not only for our case, but for every developer who passes through the same situatio as we do.
Have you tried talking to apple?
The thing is that, you can't patent a UI design and features. If they have features that don't work then it will get bad reviews. Just think of it as another competitor and stop caring.
Thanks, it’s not just about design, our issue is that these individuals are spamming the App Store by using our app. They infringe so many Apple developer Guidelines but Apple don’t even care. Another issue you can't contact them directly only by using "Report a problem" form that for me never worked.
From the screenshots, it isn't really apparent that anything has been "cloned"? Doing a quick search for the app name gives me numerous apps with the same, or similar, name.
How would anybody be able to "clone" your app to begin with? I'd assume they do not have access to your source code, so I don't really understand how anybody could clone an app on the App Store.
Perhaps you can share some more information about what's happening here?
I invite you to see all the threads, from the first to the last. You can clearly see that the same individuals make variations of our app in different colors.
Yeah, just had a quick look at the Twitter thread and it does indeed seem to be a copy. Any idea how they'd go about something like this? I mean they wouldn't have access to your code, right? So they'd simply copy it by rebuilding it?
As for how to deal with this; I guess you could reach out to Apple and see if they're willing to pick this up? Other than that, don't really see any recourse.