A serious Apple Pay malfunction appears to have arisen in Hungary. Multiple Apple Pay users in the country have reported unexplained charges in rapid succession.
Users are reportedly seeing multiple transactions despite making no purchases, with one user experiencing 74 unexplained transactions one after another totaling well over $1,500 USD. These charges seem to be linked to previously canceled subscriptions, and some of them match the amounts of previous App Store purchases made by the user.
First reported by MacRumors, the problem appears to have impacted all major banks operating within Hungary. According to multiple different news sites from the country, banks are overwhelmed with requests from customers to resolve issues caused by the mysterious malfunction.
OTP Bank in Hungary said that "massive unjustified debits" were apparently made to multiple cards. Although the exact cause of this situation has yet to be determined, the problem appears to be on Apple's end.
A statement on the Raiffeisen Bank website claims that the bank is working with Apple to address this issue:
"We inform our customers that due to a technical problem with an external partner, the bank cards of some of our customers may have been incorrectly charged by the Apple App Store. Our colleagues have contacted Apple officials, and the problem is being resolved."
Customers are advised to watch for unexpected charges while the issue is resolved. Contact your bank if unauthorized charges appear.