Woman drops Apple Watch at Disney World, claims $40,000 in fraudulent credit card charges

A woman lost her Apple Watch Hermès on a ride at Walt Disney World last month and subsequently claimed approximately $40,000 of fraudulent charges were made via credit cards stored in Apple Wallet on her Watch.
Woman drops Apple Watch at Disney World, claims $40,000 in fraudulent credit card charges
Katie Francis for WDW News Today:

The woman was fidgeting with her Apple watch while she rode the slow-moving The Seas with Nemo & Friends attraction on April 13. The ride was in an elevated position, the woman said, at the worst possible time when the watch popped off her wrist…
She had several credit cards linked to the watch, including an American Express card with an unlimited credit line, the report said.
The woman, who was staying at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, filed an incident with Disney Guest Relations to see if anyone had retrieved the fallen watch. She went back later, and no one had turned it in. “The staff advised her that they did not have the watch,” the report said.
Then came the fraud alerts.
The woman “advised that has several fraud alerts throughout the course of the day on her Amex card. According to the victim, there was approximately $40,000 of fraudulent charges on her card,” the report said.
The woman said she shut down the credit cards attached to the missing watch.

MacDailyNews Take: If wrist detection is enabled, as it is by default, an Apple Watch locks automatically soon after it’s removed from the user’s wrist.
If you turn off wrist detection, when you use Apple Pay on your Apple Watch, you’ll be prompted to enter your passcode when you double-click the side button to authorize the payment.
If you disable your Apple Watch’s passcode, you can’t use Apple Pay on your Apple Watch.
So, did this woman use a poor, easily guessable passcode like 1-1-1-1 for her Apple Watch?
Note also:
• When Find My is activated on an iPhone, its paired Apple Watch can use Activation Lock which makes it harder for anyone to use or sell an Apple Watch that’s been lost or stolen. Activation Lock requires the user’s Apple ID and password to unpair, erase, or reactivate an Apple Watch.
• If wrist detection is disabled, Control Center provides an option for locking Apple Watch. When Apple Watch is locked, Apple Pay can be used only by entering the passcode on the Apple Watch.
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