VaCo Vintage Photo.s Effect.s

If you are at this website, you’ve tried to click the support link for the developer “MaK Apps LLC” on their Apple App Store App, “VaCo Vintage Photo.s Effect.s“.

Recently I found out my daughter was tricked into a weekly $4.99 subscription by this app because she agreed to a free trial subscription which almost immediately converted into a weekly subscription. The app mostly garbage effects, so she deleted the app but didn’t cancel the subscription.

Sadly, because her account was connected to a credit card which also receives other small charges from Apple accounts, and because she wasn’t checking the e-mail connected to the account while at school, these charges went on for over a year before we noticed.

Apple’s policy is to refund a maximum of 90 days worth of accidental subscriptions. As far as other recourse, I was told I could contact the developer. Unfortunately for me, the developer’s support link on the app’s description page went to a long-dead url. Unfortunately for MaK Apps LLC, the domain was for sale and I bought it.

What’s Scammy About the App?

It’s named “VaCo” which is very close to VsCo, a nicely done set of photo effects. The app name and subhead have odd punctuation. The description is in broken English. The reviews show an odd distribution of ratings as though the developer bought a large number of five-star ratings. The one-star ratings all seem to complain about the subscription policy.

Other Oddities

The developer has four other apps on the App Store, and only two of those have a “working” support site, hosted on Weebly. The links to these apps’ ToS and Privacy Policy go to Google-Drive hosted content. All of the apps appear to be nearly the same effects. All of their apps have the same odd distribution of ratings.

DON’T BUY THIS SOFTWARE!