The Hong Kong police have received more than 700 reports of unauthorised credit card transactions linked to Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro preorders. The charges total HK$14.7 million and were made over the weekend on cards issued by several different banks, according to the South China Morning Post.

Preorders for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max opened at 8 pm on Saturday. Police shared on Sunday that they were treating the cases as obtaining property by deception, with one of the reported losses amounting to HK$114,000 on its own.

Apple said it is reviewing all current orders before processing them.

Johnny Ng Kit-chong, a Hong Kong lawmaker, said that he suspected that the hackers had stolen and stored card details over a period of time, waiting for the right moment to use them.

He also raised the possibility that Apple had switched off multi-factor verification for card payments to keep its site responsive under heavy preorder traffic, which could have left an opening for fraudsters.

Apple has shared that it will review incoming orders prior to processing them. The company is said to be identifying and cancelling suspected fraudulent transactions.

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