Here's how I spotted this $5M/year scam in 5 minutes flat.
First, the ratings of this app: 4.6 stars, with over 83,146 ratings, and a glowing 5-star "featured" review.
Let's dig in with AppFigures and look at the star breakdown of just the reviews - there's 835 of them:
5-stars: 109
4-stars: 6
3-stars: 9
2-stars: 31
1-stars: 680
Their average stars?
1.6
ONE. POINT. SIX.
In these reviews, people are desperately trying to warn others not to make the same mistake they did:
"DO NOT PURCHASE"
"PREDATORY COMPANY"
"Thieves Stay Away"
"Hard to believe these reviews are genuine"
"BAIT AND SWITCH"
Let's look at their ratings over time: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EthbbYYVIAEWK9I?format=jpg&name=large
Blue line is new positive ratings per day. This is a completely unnatural pattern here, when overlaid with their download numbers, inferred by the app rankings: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ethbx8jUYAEtDGB?format=jpg&name=large
The featured 5-star review is there because the scammers made sure to also long press on it and mark it as "Helpful", alongside submitting all their fake, bought ratings.
This scam has been operating from Indonesia for years, although "operating" is giving it too much credit. The app was last updated in 2019, so they are literally sitting and collecting the stolen money.
When you download and open the app, you HAVE to start a $10/week subscription to proceed. UNREAL.
Apple is doing nothing. In fact, they're even sending the scammers a cool $400k per month.
The scam: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/star-gazer/id1474038335
Their "website": http://textystories.com
Another image from their support website reads: "Life is wonderful, let our games be part of it!"
This is some utter BS. Honest developers are getting fooled by all sides. I am furious.