It turns out the author of the article used to work at Apple in customer service. (According to his Google+ page https://plus.google.com/112301869379652563135/a

It turns out the author of the article used to work at Apple in customer service. (According to his Google+ page https://plus.google.com/112301869379652563135/about https://plus.google.com/112301869379652563135/about) But he makes no mention of this in an article that speaks largely about the customer service of Apple and PayPal. I find this pretty disingenuous, and regardless of whether his story was factual or not, it takes the wind out of anything he's saying.