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> Already Apple seems to have no qualms to ban Apple IDs of legitimate customers who entirely legitimately have bought gift cards and loaded them up on their ac
by labcomputer 3y ago
> Already Apple seems to have no qualms to ban Apple IDs of legitimate customers who entirely legitimately have bought gift cards and loaded them up on their account, on the simple premise that their algorithm flags accounts that top up more than $1k as suspicious
I wonder if that’s an AML thing? Buying apps from a small (15%) developer account using gift cards (paid with cash) could be an efficient way to clean money. I would guess that the number of legitimate customers inconvenienced by a $1k heuristic is fairly small.
- turquoisevar 3y agoYeah I think it’s an AML thing. These cases have been popping up more often on forums etc. lately (still single digits though) and some of them were able to get themselves unbanned after emailing Tim Cook. In almost all described cases they claim that they used legitimate gift cards bought or gifted to them in an effort to purchase an Apple device. I have my doubts about the veracity of some of those stories, but assuming everything is aboveboard and truthfully conveyed, I think $1k might be a bit too sensitive for a company that sells a lot of hardware that’s priced above that. It might also be more prevalent nowadays because App Store funds and Apple Store funds used to be separate, they merged the balances not too long ago.