10 ms·

Apple account disabled after using many different gift cards

47 points by alymaly 4y ago

alymaly 4y ago
A little over a month ago I encountered a very serious problem from Apple. I’m posting it only now, as I have just returned after a long trip. I can no longer fully use my account - download apps I bought, update them, use my balance, renew subscriptions. And all of this affects all my Apple devices - two iPhones, two iPads, a Macbook Pro and an Apple Watch. As I was told by one of the 30 operators I managed to talk to on the phone after spending about 12 hours of my time on it, the reason was that "you redeemed several gift cards too quickly and they all had different face value". I've been an Apple products user for a bit over 10 years now and have used a variety of devices and gadgets. And in the last 3 years my whole team of 20 people almost completely switched to Apple devices and ecosystem. And up until that point I thought it was a mutually beneficial and friendly relationship. I've been travelling a lot in the last 10 years and living and working in different countries. For this reason, I have multiple Apple ID accounts in different countries. Since not all the apps, especially banking, food delivery and cab apps, are available in all Apple Stores (according to Apple you can have up to 5 accounts). And I usually use gift certificates, because it helps me not to think about which card is used and when it expires. And it seems that I've been using them since my first introduction to Apple products 10 years ago. In early July 2022, right on my birthday, my Macbook pro 15 2019 was suddenly showing no signs of life. While it was being repaired, I decided to consider upgrading my working computer. After choosing the needed configuration, I redeemed my supply of gift cards to my account. I still have receipts for almost all of the cards, as well as the cards themselves. A few days later, I was about to place an order for a new working laptop, when I found out that I was getting an error "Your account has been disabled in the App Store and iTunes" when trying to purchase something. After that, long calls and conversations with technical support began, and it did not lead to any solution. As a result, I was left without a new laptop, and most importantly - all the digital content that I bought on my iPhone, iPad, Macbook Pro - I can no longer use and update it. And that are dozens of subscriptions, Final Cut licences, Logic Pro, and a lot of other software. Tech support gave me only one solution - create a new account and buy everything again. And this is not one hundred, and not even one thousand dollars. As I see it, the tech support is unwilling to solve my problem or help solving it in any way. Phrases like "yes I understand you" will in no way compensate for my lost time I spent over the phone with them nor earn the money that I spent buying apps that Apple has taken away on its own whim due to some very questionable reasons.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  [flagged]
- tptacek 4y ago
  You clearly aren't trying to defraud Apple. You're in a shitty situation, and I can imagine how frustrating it must be. But redeeming a bunch of random gift cards (most especially if they were purchased in a bunch of different countries) is extremely fraud-like behavior. There's nothing wrong with what you did! You're not a fraudster! But you undertook a series of actions that is almost exclusively undertaken by fraudsters. The recovery process for this situation is especially annoying, because fraudsters absolutely will try to talk their way out of fraud controls, and first- and second- line customer support people aren't qualified to go toe-to-toe with fraudsters (who are hyperspecialized and thus simply better at winning these CS interactions than the customer support staff is). So, yeah, your recovery experience is going to be hostile and prolonged. My guess is what you need to do here is find a way to escalate out of customer service. Maybe someone else on HN has advice on how to do that.
- Maxburn 4y ago
  I feel like your situation kicked up a fraud/loss prevention lockout. Your experience with low level support; nothing they can do about it at their level. I don't know where you call home but in the US we have small claims court. Maximum penalties are in the region of $5000 but the nice thing is you can file yourself without a lawyer. This might kick it up the ladder to someone that could get this fixed. OR it could go really badly and have them double down on locking you out. Hopefully you get the exposure here/twitter to get the right person involved in getting this solved.
  - alymaly 4y ago
    Right now, I don't have the opportunity to go to court. But I really hope that our communication will get their attention. Thank you all for your comments and answers! This is very inspiring!
superchroma 4y ago
"Tech support gave me only one solution - create a new account and buy everything again." Apple is a horrible company. Richer than god and they can't afford to provide support to paying customers, even if they're brand loyal. I would choose a master who doesn't care 10 times out of 10 to living in a walled garden where you get smacked for reasons you couldn't have possibly anticipated.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Any account you have on any service online is not yours, and you can be denied access to it at anytime.
  - superchroma 4y ago
    This is not useful input. It's maybe helpful to remind people who forget good business practices and put all their eggs in one basket (e.g. AWS), but for things like software licensing and email for an individual, you should not be revoked access to it except in the most extreme of situations. The reality is that a citizen's world runs on these services. You need email, a phone and phone number, etc. to get by in this world. Either apple should be ripped up to shreds with antitrust because they've monopolized people's lives, or they're required to provide these services for a specified time and with a set of assurances.
    - alymaly 4y ago
      In fact, my foresight not to put my eggs in one basket allowed me to travel and deal with this problem after more than a month. It's a very important practice that many people don't think about until they are faced with this kind of problem.
- alymaly 4y ago
  Yes, I created a new account to continue using the free services. But I still can't update any of the apps on my phone and iPad And it really disappointed me to have spent the last few years advising all my friends and colleagues to switch to a Macbook for work
tptacek 4y ago
Not super surprising? Like this is pretty obviously the kind of thing that sets off fraud detection, and probably 99 times out of 100 that fraud signal is real, which means it's not routed into customer service, but rather anti-fraud, which is not very friendly. There are few things fraud-ier than gift cards. It sucks! There's nothing morally wrong with using them! But anything outside the absolute most normal usage of a gift card is likely to stick you in a user cluster that is overwhelmingly fraudulent.
- jtbayly 4y ago
  I wouldn't say this is obvious at all. If Apple thinks gift cards are fraudulent, it shouldn't sell them or accept them as a payment method.
  - mmastrac 4y ago
    I have to agree with this. Either they are too risky to accept, or they're too lucrative to ignore. You can't play both sides here, because it's not going to be the 1T company that gets hurt in the end -- it'll be the small guy with no resources.
    - mhoad 4y ago
      Edit: Meã culpa! I didn’t read the article properly, what you are talking about and what I was talking about were two different things and I wrote a snide comment about it. Sorry.
      - jtbayly 4y ago
        This is not a case of a heuristic. This is a case of provably purchased gift cards, and multiple people at Apple refusing to accept those cards as payment, and in fact retaliating by confiscating the cards, along with all software previously purchased by the user. This is not accepting gift cards.
        4y ago
LeoPanthera 4y ago
This is a clickbait headline. I'm not defending what happened, but it wasn't just for using (a) "gift card". (Edit: The HN headline has now changed.) As he himself admits, he used a lot of different cards of different values. He doesn't say exactly how many, and I bet that's because it's a lot. He also says he has "multiple Apple ID accounts in different countries". Apple should absolutely restore this guys account if he isn't actually attempting fraud, but as far as anti-fraud measures go, this would make me suspicious, too.
- jtbayly 4y ago
  If Apple isn't going to accept gift cards, it shouldn't claim it accepts gift cards. He should take this to small claims court, I think.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Apple obviously accepts gift cards; people use them all the time. "You're not allowed to have any fraud detection" would be a silly rule. I think there should be an appeals court sort of thing for these scenarios; I suppose that's probably small claims here.
    - alymaly 4y ago
      When I ask what I have violated, they suggest reading the legal page. I've already read it a thousand times. There's nothing in there that I could have broken.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        That's very common with these sorts of decisions; they won't reveal the specific reasons, and typically claim it's to avoid disclosing their exact anti-fraud strategies to potential adversaries. Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. all do the same.
  - cmeacham98 4y ago
    The point they're trying to make is not that Apple is in the right, the point is that the original title (which was something like "Apple account disabled for using a gift card") doesn't represent what actually happened.
jwr 4y ago
The real problem here is the idiotic partitioning of the App Store into countries. This causes so much trouble. Companies restrict their apps without thinking about it much, and customers have to jump through hoops to access these apps (or just not use them at all). Case in point: just try to visit the US with an EU-based iPhone. Apps like Starbucks, Target, Ralphs, Vons, and many many others will be inaccessible to you. You'd think we'd be past those ancient divisions in this day and age.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  > Case in point: just try to visit the US with an EU-based iPhone. Apps like Starbucks, Target, Ralphs, Vons, and many many others will be inaccessible to you. Just had the same experience in Australia; the local grocery store there had an app to figure out which aisle things were in, but I wasn't allowed to download it from the US store.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  Hasn’t the EU repeatedly ruled that personal data collected from EU citizens in EU jurisdictions cannot legally pass into U.S. jurisdiction? Partitioning online stores geographically seems like a way to deliver such compliance.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    No, the EU has not ruled that; the EU has ruled that it requires the user's consent. https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/obligations/what-rules-apply-if-my-organisation-transfers-data-outside-eu_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo... > if a transfer of personal data is envisaged to a third country that isn’t the subject of an Adequacy Decision and if appropriate safeguards are absent, a transfer can be made based on a number of derogations for specific situations for example, where an individual has explicitly consented to the proposed transfer after having been provided with all necessary information about the risks associated with the transfer.
  - jwr 4y ago
    This argument is often used as an excuse. What "personal data"? I just want to browse and find the products available at local Target stores. Or buy coffee with a gift card.
matwood 4y ago
Back when you could buy $100 or $200 gift cards for 20% off, I used them regularly. It always feels like there is something missing in these stories. Are mistakes made by Apple (or other big cos?) sure. But they don't want to shut people off. Something was done either accidentally or on purpose that likely triggered some internal fraud warning. I think the biggest problem is getting caught in the low level call center support when the problem needs to be up-leveled to someone who can help. This is something companies should improve on, but I'm sure the volume makes it challenging.
- bombcar 4y ago
  The problem is that more and more companies are a literal "privilege" (private law) and that there is no court of appeals. There should be. Let Apple do their fraud detection, and 90%+ of the fraudulent accounts will do nothing further, but for the ones accidentally caught there should be some method, something that is too detailed for scammers to do but possible for a "real person" to do.
  - alymaly 4y ago
    I already find same cases on reddit and google. And only one case was resolved. And just after the user started a public campaign. I really spent about 12-15 hours for phone calls..
    - tptacek 4y ago
      One thing I think you're hearing from multiple people here is that you should stop banging your head against standard customer support --- or at least, if you're starting with customer support, do nothing but escalate your call, don't try to talk a CS person into unflagging your account. They can't unflag your account, so you're probably wasting time trying.
      - alymaly 4y ago
        I was transferred to a higher level (that's what they said, but I think it was still the usual customer service). And I don't know how to escalate the problem to another level. Maybe a public posting would help in some way
snowwrestler 4y ago
Lots of people here are telling you that your behavior made you look like a scammer, which seems probable. If that’s the case, you need to stop looking like a scammer. One potential way to do that is to use the U.S. court system. On the whole, criminals try to avoid that institution and its insistence on verifying identities and facts. Someone said take Apple to small claims court, which might be one way to start. I would consider at least meeting with a lawyer. A well-written letter from an actual attorney, sent to Apple’s legal department, might help change the conversation. The initial meeting should be free and the letter might not cost much as a first step.
xlii 4y ago
IMO the reason why that happened is because OP wanted to be too anonymous. As far as I know all money flows above non-trivial amounts have to be attached to some entity. Gift cards allow to bypass that, since, well - they can be bought in store for hard cash. 2000$ is non trivial amount (and honestly, I'm really wondering why one would have that much, that's for digital content only, right?) - if that's OPs primary way of adding money to the account it stinks of a laundry scheme. Buy gift cards at kiosks, buy obscure DLCs, cash out. Probably the way out would be to provide full paper trail. Not sure if Apple even can ask for it, though. As someone else wrote in comment, getting on the bad side of the fraud detection tough nut to crack.
- alymaly 4y ago
  I don't like using credit cards and other cards if it can be avoided. Yes, I am a bit paranoid about it. But that's no reason to ban my account.
logicalmonster 4y ago
Without knowing all of the details of this situation, and without knowing if the Apple operator who told you that the reason for the ban was correct, this seems like a crappy situation and that Apple is unfairly screwing you over here. One suggestion. Do you have any proof that you bought the gift cards legitimately: say receipts from the store or webapp you bought them from or credit card statements you used to purchase the gift cards with? It might bolster your case to provide this kind of information to Apple and show that there was no ill intent. Or at least, it makes sense to gather this info for some kind of suit against them in small claims court for the lost software (try and tally up those prices of all missing software and sue them for that). The people saying that the person is at fault for using gift cards of varying amounts are not being helpful. If there's no published limitations on their usage, then you should not have to blindly guess how much you can spend before an action is a violation.
- tptacek 4y ago
  They have receipts, but the challenging thing here is that fraudsters also generate "receipts".
  - logicalmonster 4y ago
    I am not a lawyer, so this is only conjecture. If Apple is claiming fraud, I'd think the burden of proof should be on them in small claims court to prove, or at least provide reasonable suspicion, that fraud occurred. If Apple's sole proof is "it's unusual to buy with giftcards" I don't see how they should win a case. You would tell the judge "Hey, if I was some kind of gift card scammer, would I risk showing up in court complaining about the software that was stolen from me?" I've never taken a big corporation to small claims court, but I'd think a judge would be sympathetic about this kind of situation. It would look bad on Apple if the person supplied proof he bought the gift cards in good faith, had a reasonable explanation for why he used them, pointed out there were no published limits for their usage, and then pointed out that Apple effectively robbed him of $XXXX dollars worth of software he paid for without any reasonable recourse.
    - 4y ago
pwinnski 4y ago
When someone is legitimately trying to redeem 25-35 gift cards bought over time for a total of $2k, it is dastardly and horrible of Apple to block him. When scammers trick people into buying gift cards for them, and the scammers later redeem them, say 25-35 of them bought by victims over time for a total of $2k, it is dastardly and horrible of Apple to not work harder to stop the scammers. I happen to believe the OP here, but it's really easy to see how this happened, and why Apple's people could feel like they're doing a Good Thing™ here.
- alymaly 4y ago
  My colleague recently bought a phone and also activated gift cards. There were about 10-12 of them (it was an iPhone 13 Pro) and there were no problems at all.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    To be honest, that doesn't make you sound less likely to be a scammer. But more to the point, it could easily be that it takes 15 or 20 cards within a short amount of time before the automated systems are triggered. Apple has a lot of data on how scammers operate, and has dealt with scammers many, many, many times, and probably continues to refine their checks periodically. Still assuming you are not a scammer, you are definitely unlucky.
fmajid 4y ago
No matter whether the OP is in the right or not, it's worth considering Apple or Google accounts as a Single Point of Failure in your personal disaster recovery plan. There have been plenty of stories about Google capriciously disabling accounts with no redress possible, so this goes well beyond Apple. What are the implications of losing your Apple account? - loss of apps, licensed content - inability to perform software upgrades, essentially turning your computers and devices into paperweights - loss of sync for things like contacts, keychain In the case of Google, I'd lose my Voice account that is the one registered with banks, credit cards and the like (I try to minimize my exposure to Google and tried to use Twilio instead, even paying for it it is very unreliable).
- alymaly 4y ago
  Yes, I try to use a third-party service. But here's where I made another mistake - using authorization through Apple - that created a huge problem on several occasions, because it's impossible to authorize in the app at all.
  - salawat 4y ago
    This is the American regulatory state working as designed btw. It's why the Government likes to let large actors coalesce. Easier to keep a few big companies compliant than a flood of little guys. ...which is why if you don't want to see this sort of thing we have to get away from tech giants, and diversify.
sdze 4y ago
Hopefully the EU stops companies in the digital market act to revoke access to paid digital goods. It is a disgrace. Fraud or not. Only a court should decide this.
alymaly 4y ago
UPD: I got a call today from Apple Retail Executive Relations department. They made manual review of my account and restore it. Problem solved. Thanks everybody for your advice and support. I'm sure our discussion helped to get the problem noticed.

47 points by alymaly 4y ago

A little over a month ago I encountered a very serious problem from Apple. I’m posting it only now, as I have just returned after a long trip. I can no longer fully use my account - download apps I bought, update them, use my balance, renew subscriptions. And all of this affects all my Apple devices - two iPhones, two iPads, a Macbook Pro and an Apple Watch. As I was told by one of the 30 operators I managed to talk to on the phone after spending about 12 hours of my time on it, the reason was that "you redeemed several gift cards too quickly and they all had different face value". I've been an Apple products user for a bit over 10 years now and have used a variety of devices and gadgets. And in the last 3 years my whole team of 20 people almost completely switched to Apple devices and ecosystem. And up until that point I thought it was a mutually beneficial and friendly relationship. I've been travelling a lot in the last 10 years and living and working in different countries. For this reason, I have multiple Apple ID accounts in different countries. Since not all the apps, especially banking, food delivery and cab apps, are available in all Apple Stores (according to Apple you can have up to 5 accounts). And I usually use gift certificates, because it helps me not to think about which card is used and when it expires. And it seems that I've been using them since my first introduction to Apple products 10 years ago. In early July 2022, right on my birthday, my Macbook pro 15 2019 was suddenly showing no signs of life. While it was being repaired, I decided to consider upgrading my working computer. After choosing the needed configuration, I redeemed my supply of gift cards to my account. I still have receipts for almost all of the cards, as well as the cards themselves. A few days later, I was about to place an order for a new working laptop, when I found out that I was getting an error "Your account has been disabled in the App Store and iTunes" when trying to purchase something. After that, long calls and conversations with technical support began, and it did not lead to any solution. As a result, I was left without a new laptop, and most importantly - all the digital content that I bought on my iPhone, iPad, Macbook Pro - I can no longer use and update it. And that are dozens of subscriptions, Final Cut licences, Logic Pro, and a lot of other software. Tech support gave me only one solution - create a new account and buy everything again. And this is not one hundred, and not even one thousand dollars. As I see it, the tech support is unwilling to solve my problem or help solving it in any way. Phrases like "yes I understand you" will in no way compensate for my lost time I spent over the phone with them nor earn the money that I spent buying apps that Apple has taken away on its own whim due to some very questionable reasons.

PaulHoule 4y ago
[flagged]
tptacek 4y ago
You clearly aren't trying to defraud Apple. You're in a shitty situation, and I can imagine how frustrating it must be. But redeeming a bunch of random gift cards (most especially if they were purchased in a bunch of different countries) is extremely fraud-like behavior. There's nothing wrong with what you did! You're not a fraudster! But you undertook a series of actions that is almost exclusively undertaken by fraudsters. The recovery process for this situation is especially annoying, because fraudsters absolutely will try to talk their way out of fraud controls, and first- and second- line customer support people aren't qualified to go toe-to-toe with fraudsters (who are hyperspecialized and thus simply better at winning these CS interactions than the customer support staff is). So, yeah, your recovery experience is going to be hostile and prolonged. My guess is what you need to do here is find a way to escalate out of customer service. Maybe someone else on HN has advice on how to do that.
Maxburn 4y ago
I feel like your situation kicked up a fraud/loss prevention lockout. Your experience with low level support; nothing they can do about it at their level. I don't know where you call home but in the US we have small claims court. Maximum penalties are in the region of $5000 but the nice thing is you can file yourself without a lawyer. This might kick it up the ladder to someone that could get this fixed. OR it could go really badly and have them double down on locking you out. Hopefully you get the exposure here/twitter to get the right person involved in getting this solved.
- alymaly 4y ago
  Right now, I don't have the opportunity to go to court. But I really hope that our communication will get their attention. Thank you all for your comments and answers! This is very inspiring!

superchroma 4y ago

"Tech support gave me only one solution - create a new account and buy everything again." Apple is a horrible company. Richer than god and they can't afford to provide support to paying customers, even if they're brand loyal. I would choose a master who doesn't care 10 times out of 10 to living in a walled garden where you get smacked for reasons you couldn't have possibly anticipated.

bombcar 4y ago
Any account you have on any service online is not yours, and you can be denied access to it at anytime.
- superchroma 4y ago
  This is not useful input. It's maybe helpful to remind people who forget good business practices and put all their eggs in one basket (e.g. AWS), but for things like software licensing and email for an individual, you should not be revoked access to it except in the most extreme of situations. The reality is that a citizen's world runs on these services. You need email, a phone and phone number, etc. to get by in this world. Either apple should be ripped up to shreds with antitrust because they've monopolized people's lives, or they're required to provide these services for a specified time and with a set of assurances.
  - alymaly 4y ago
    In fact, my foresight not to put my eggs in one basket allowed me to travel and deal with this problem after more than a month. It's a very important practice that many people don't think about until they are faced with this kind of problem.
alymaly 4y ago
Yes, I created a new account to continue using the free services. But I still can't update any of the apps on my phone and iPad And it really disappointed me to have spent the last few years advising all my friends and colleagues to switch to a Macbook for work

tptacek 4y ago

Not super surprising? Like this is pretty obviously the kind of thing that sets off fraud detection, and probably 99 times out of 100 that fraud signal is real, which means it's not routed into customer service, but rather anti-fraud, which is not very friendly. There are few things fraud-ier than gift cards. It sucks! There's nothing morally wrong with using them! But anything outside the absolute most normal usage of a gift card is likely to stick you in a user cluster that is overwhelmingly fraudulent.

jtbayly 4y ago
I wouldn't say this is obvious at all. If Apple thinks gift cards are fraudulent, it shouldn't sell them or accept them as a payment method.
- mmastrac 4y ago
  I have to agree with this. Either they are too risky to accept, or they're too lucrative to ignore. You can't play both sides here, because it's not going to be the 1T company that gets hurt in the end -- it'll be the small guy with no resources.
  - mhoad 4y ago
    Edit: Meã culpa! I didn’t read the article properly, what you are talking about and what I was talking about were two different things and I wrote a snide comment about it. Sorry.
    - jtbayly 4y ago
      This is not a case of a heuristic. This is a case of provably purchased gift cards, and multiple people at Apple refusing to accept those cards as payment, and in fact retaliating by confiscating the cards, along with all software previously purchased by the user. This is not accepting gift cards.
      - 4y ago

LeoPanthera 4y ago

This is a clickbait headline. I'm not defending what happened, but it wasn't just for using (a) "gift card". (Edit: The HN headline has now changed.) As he himself admits, he used a lot of different cards of different values. He doesn't say exactly how many, and I bet that's because it's a lot. He also says he has "multiple Apple ID accounts in different countries". Apple should absolutely restore this guys account if he isn't actually attempting fraud, but as far as anti-fraud measures go, this would make me suspicious, too.

jtbayly 4y ago
If Apple isn't going to accept gift cards, it shouldn't claim it accepts gift cards. He should take this to small claims court, I think.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Apple obviously accepts gift cards; people use them all the time. "You're not allowed to have any fraud detection" would be a silly rule. I think there should be an appeals court sort of thing for these scenarios; I suppose that's probably small claims here.
  - alymaly 4y ago
    When I ask what I have violated, they suggest reading the legal page. I've already read it a thousand times. There's nothing in there that I could have broken.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      That's very common with these sorts of decisions; they won't reveal the specific reasons, and typically claim it's to avoid disclosing their exact anti-fraud strategies to potential adversaries. Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. all do the same.
- cmeacham98 4y ago
  The point they're trying to make is not that Apple is in the right, the point is that the original title (which was something like "Apple account disabled for using a gift card") doesn't represent what actually happened.

jwr 4y ago

The real problem here is the idiotic partitioning of the App Store into countries. This causes so much trouble. Companies restrict their apps without thinking about it much, and customers have to jump through hoops to access these apps (or just not use them at all). Case in point: just try to visit the US with an EU-based iPhone. Apps like Starbucks, Target, Ralphs, Vons, and many many others will be inaccessible to you. You'd think we'd be past those ancient divisions in this day and age.

ceejayoz 4y ago
> Case in point: just try to visit the US with an EU-based iPhone. Apps like Starbucks, Target, Ralphs, Vons, and many many others will be inaccessible to you. Just had the same experience in Australia; the local grocery store there had an app to figure out which aisle things were in, but I wasn't allowed to download it from the US store.
snowwrestler 4y ago
Hasn’t the EU repeatedly ruled that personal data collected from EU citizens in EU jurisdictions cannot legally pass into U.S. jurisdiction? Partitioning online stores geographically seems like a way to deliver such compliance.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  No, the EU has not ruled that; the EU has ruled that it requires the user's consent. https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/obligations/what-rules-apply-if-my-organisation-transfers-data-outside-eu_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo... > if a transfer of personal data is envisaged to a third country that isn’t the subject of an Adequacy Decision and if appropriate safeguards are absent, a transfer can be made based on a number of derogations for specific situations for example, where an individual has explicitly consented to the proposed transfer after having been provided with all necessary information about the risks associated with the transfer.
- jwr 4y ago
  This argument is often used as an excuse. What "personal data"? I just want to browse and find the products available at local Target stores. Or buy coffee with a gift card.

matwood 4y ago

Back when you could buy $100 or $200 gift cards for 20% off, I used them regularly. It always feels like there is something missing in these stories. Are mistakes made by Apple (or other big cos?) sure. But they don't want to shut people off. Something was done either accidentally or on purpose that likely triggered some internal fraud warning. I think the biggest problem is getting caught in the low level call center support when the problem needs to be up-leveled to someone who can help. This is something companies should improve on, but I'm sure the volume makes it challenging.

bombcar 4y ago
The problem is that more and more companies are a literal "privilege" (private law) and that there is no court of appeals. There should be. Let Apple do their fraud detection, and 90%+ of the fraudulent accounts will do nothing further, but for the ones accidentally caught there should be some method, something that is too detailed for scammers to do but possible for a "real person" to do.
- alymaly 4y ago
  I already find same cases on reddit and google. And only one case was resolved. And just after the user started a public campaign. I really spent about 12-15 hours for phone calls..
  - tptacek 4y ago
    One thing I think you're hearing from multiple people here is that you should stop banging your head against standard customer support --- or at least, if you're starting with customer support, do nothing but escalate your call, don't try to talk a CS person into unflagging your account. They can't unflag your account, so you're probably wasting time trying.
    - alymaly 4y ago
      I was transferred to a higher level (that's what they said, but I think it was still the usual customer service). And I don't know how to escalate the problem to another level. Maybe a public posting would help in some way

snowwrestler 4y ago

Lots of people here are telling you that your behavior made you look like a scammer, which seems probable. If that’s the case, you need to stop looking like a scammer. One potential way to do that is to use the U.S. court system. On the whole, criminals try to avoid that institution and its insistence on verifying identities and facts. Someone said take Apple to small claims court, which might be one way to start. I would consider at least meeting with a lawyer. A well-written letter from an actual attorney, sent to Apple’s legal department, might help change the conversation. The initial meeting should be free and the letter might not cost much as a first step.

xlii 4y ago

IMO the reason why that happened is because OP wanted to be too anonymous. As far as I know all money flows above non-trivial amounts have to be attached to some entity. Gift cards allow to bypass that, since, well - they can be bought in store for hard cash. 2000$ is non trivial amount (and honestly, I'm really wondering why one would have that much, that's for digital content only, right?) - if that's OPs primary way of adding money to the account it stinks of a laundry scheme. Buy gift cards at kiosks, buy obscure DLCs, cash out. Probably the way out would be to provide full paper trail. Not sure if Apple even can ask for it, though. As someone else wrote in comment, getting on the bad side of the fraud detection tough nut to crack.

alymaly 4y ago
I don't like using credit cards and other cards if it can be avoided. Yes, I am a bit paranoid about it. But that's no reason to ban my account.

logicalmonster 4y ago

Without knowing all of the details of this situation, and without knowing if the Apple operator who told you that the reason for the ban was correct, this seems like a crappy situation and that Apple is unfairly screwing you over here. One suggestion. Do you have any proof that you bought the gift cards legitimately: say receipts from the store or webapp you bought them from or credit card statements you used to purchase the gift cards with? It might bolster your case to provide this kind of information to Apple and show that there was no ill intent. Or at least, it makes sense to gather this info for some kind of suit against them in small claims court for the lost software (try and tally up those prices of all missing software and sue them for that). The people saying that the person is at fault for using gift cards of varying amounts are not being helpful. If there's no published limitations on their usage, then you should not have to blindly guess how much you can spend before an action is a violation.

tptacek 4y ago
They have receipts, but the challenging thing here is that fraudsters also generate "receipts".
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  I am not a lawyer, so this is only conjecture. If Apple is claiming fraud, I'd think the burden of proof should be on them in small claims court to prove, or at least provide reasonable suspicion, that fraud occurred. If Apple's sole proof is "it's unusual to buy with giftcards" I don't see how they should win a case. You would tell the judge "Hey, if I was some kind of gift card scammer, would I risk showing up in court complaining about the software that was stolen from me?" I've never taken a big corporation to small claims court, but I'd think a judge would be sympathetic about this kind of situation. It would look bad on Apple if the person supplied proof he bought the gift cards in good faith, had a reasonable explanation for why he used them, pointed out there were no published limits for their usage, and then pointed out that Apple effectively robbed him of $XXXX dollars worth of software he paid for without any reasonable recourse.
  - 4y ago

pwinnski 4y ago

When someone is legitimately trying to redeem 25-35 gift cards bought over time for a total of $2k, it is dastardly and horrible of Apple to block him. When scammers trick people into buying gift cards for them, and the scammers later redeem them, say 25-35 of them bought by victims over time for a total of $2k, it is dastardly and horrible of Apple to not work harder to stop the scammers. I happen to believe the OP here, but it's really easy to see how this happened, and why Apple's people could feel like they're doing a Good Thing™ here.

alymaly 4y ago
My colleague recently bought a phone and also activated gift cards. There were about 10-12 of them (it was an iPhone 13 Pro) and there were no problems at all.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  To be honest, that doesn't make you sound less likely to be a scammer. But more to the point, it could easily be that it takes 15 or 20 cards within a short amount of time before the automated systems are triggered. Apple has a lot of data on how scammers operate, and has dealt with scammers many, many, many times, and probably continues to refine their checks periodically. Still assuming you are not a scammer, you are definitely unlucky.

fmajid 4y ago

No matter whether the OP is in the right or not, it's worth considering Apple or Google accounts as a Single Point of Failure in your personal disaster recovery plan. There have been plenty of stories about Google capriciously disabling accounts with no redress possible, so this goes well beyond Apple. What are the implications of losing your Apple account? - loss of apps, licensed content - inability to perform software upgrades, essentially turning your computers and devices into paperweights - loss of sync for things like contacts, keychain In the case of Google, I'd lose my Voice account that is the one registered with banks, credit cards and the like (I try to minimize my exposure to Google and tried to use Twilio instead, even paying for it it is very unreliable).

alymaly 4y ago
Yes, I try to use a third-party service. But here's where I made another mistake - using authorization through Apple - that created a huge problem on several occasions, because it's impossible to authorize in the app at all.
- salawat 4y ago
  This is the American regulatory state working as designed btw. It's why the Government likes to let large actors coalesce. Easier to keep a few big companies compliant than a flood of little guys. ...which is why if you don't want to see this sort of thing we have to get away from tech giants, and diversify.

sdze 4y ago

Hopefully the EU stops companies in the digital market act to revoke access to paid digital goods. It is a disgrace. Fraud or not. Only a court should decide this.

alymaly 4y ago

UPD: I got a call today from Apple Retail Executive Relations department. They made manual review of my account and restore it. Problem solved. Thanks everybody for your advice and support. I'm sure our discussion helped to get the problem noticed.