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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

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!

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!