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It's just insane that a gift card redemption can trigger this. What's the rationale? It would make more sense if they just locked the person out of redeeming gi

• deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
• breppp 10mo ago
  > It's just insane that a gift card redemption can trigger this. What's the rationale? If I need to guess, gift cards are sold online in money laundering schemes, also on some platforms they are used to let you buy apps from a lower priced country
• cemoktra 10mo ago
  Well from my view as European working in finance. Handling money for customers to pay (buy apps) likely requires an e money license (not sure about other states). And with this there is lot of things coming, like AML and what not. So disabling the account might be due to regulations required for the e money license. Of course Support should be able to resolve this if proves are given
  • scoot 10mo ago
    That doesn't explain why an entire account is shut down, rather than just use of gift cards. Hammer to crack an egg, and just plain lazy/incompetent
    • BaconVonPork 10mo ago
      It is probably lazy in the sense that they would need more lawyers and more careful ToS. Defending their ability to shut anyone off completely is a lot easier than dealing with lawsuits from customers denied X, denied Y, denied Z in regions A,B,C..
  • monksy 10mo ago
    > And with this there is lot of things coming, like AML and what not Whats coming?
    • bbbhltz 10mo ago
      Money laundering, I think. AML = Anti Money Laundering
    • nine_k 10mo ago
      Anti Money Laundering measures. Gift cards are often used for money laundering or scams, because they allow to transfer monetary value in small increments and without tracking: there's no link between the person who bought a gift card (anonymously with cash) and a person who used its code to put money onto an account.
• beeflet 10mo ago
  anything can trigger this. it is totally at the company's discretion
• aengelke 10mo ago
  > What's the rationale? Gift cards are used by phishers. In our institution, we routinely get personalized spam mails (in the name of the corresponding group lead of the recipient, sent via GMail -- this is not low-effort) that ask whether they are available and, when (accidentally) responding, ask for Apple gift cards.
  • kstrauser 10mo ago
    My coworkers report these to me every single business day. They’re usually like: > Hey, it’s me, your CEO. I’m in a meeting with our big customer and I need an urgent favor. Thanks! You’re a life saver. > - Mr. CEO
• 29athrowaway 10mo ago
  Selling gift cards is like borrowing money at 0% interest. And because some people forget and never use them, it's negative interest.
• fooker 10mo ago
  Do not redeem /s
• harshreality 10mo ago
  Unfortunately, when you access multiple accounts from the same set of IP addresses and browser signatures, you can bet Google, Apple, Microsoft, and any other large company with that level of information collection has probably correlated all of those accounts to you. The company may lock them all if any one of them is suspected of "bad behavior".
  • avereveard 10mo ago
    Yeah I dont remember the details but I remember a developer at a studio causing their account to lock up when google shut down the previous studio he was working woth account
• viktorcode 10mo ago
  > What's the rationale? Most likely stolen cards. Stolen credit cards are used to purchase gift cards which are then resold to unsuspecting buyers. Think of it as stolen money laundering.
  • saurik 10mo ago
    > It would make more sense if they just locked the person out of redeeming gift cards or something, not the entire account.
  • cheschire 10mo ago
    I always wondered why sites like g2a sell gift cards at a price higher than the gift card is actually worth. A lot of things are clicking into place for me in this thread.
    • yreg 10mo ago
      Youtube is full of scam baiting videos – of people who waste scammer's time for entertainment. A very usual scenario is that the scammer pretends to be a technician doing some remote support and for example pretends to provide some refund. Then they pretend that they've mistakenly sent out e.g. 10x the amount and they ask for the difference back, claiming that their job is on the line. Crypto would work, but since they target old and tech-illiterate people, the easiest way is usually to ask the victim to go to a store, buy gift cards and read out the codes. Google kitboga (a known scam baiter) for the videos.
      • nullfield 10mo ago
        “Do not redeem the…! WHY DID YOU DO THAT!?” lol They’re great entertainment pieces, and almost a commentary on the state of the world through the lens of microeconomics, with both sides behaving in a way they think is best for them. For the baiters, they get engagement and, sometimes, the feeling of revenge for a scam visited upon an elderly relative; for the scammer, maybe it’s worse, as we know some people are trafficked into places then forced to scam people (or maybe they just want money). Still, kinda paints the world in a sad light.
• subscribed 10mo ago
  I had Amazon close my old, almostt-unused account in Amazon-in-another-country because I dared to add a new payment method. I proved them who I am, that the new payment method (virtual card from a well-known organization) is mine, everything. After lots of back-forth I've been informed their decision is final. I HAVE NOT BREACHED TOS. I wish I has a major law company behind me to force them to admit that. Very happy it was my almost unused account, heavily went down with my purchases in mt main account (in my usual country of residence) as well. And yes, I use login-with-companyName as sparingly as possible. We are not the users, we're beggars.
  • left-struck 10mo ago
    Honestly, good riddance. Just abandon that company and everything they touch.
    • dev_l1x_be 10mo ago
      If you can…
      • left-struck 10mo ago
        While you can…
  • monerozcash 10mo ago
    Emailing jeff@amazon rapidly solved the problem for me when I was in the exactly same situation. Of course it'd have been nicer to tell them to fuck off, but living without Amazon would simply be far too inconvenient.
    • queenkjuul 10mo ago
      Are you in the US? I'm just always a little surprised to read things like "i couldn't live without Amazon," and i wonder if there are no other alternatives for two day shipping on other countries or what it is that keeps people stuck on Amazon instead of using other next-day deliveries
• stavros 10mo ago
  It would make more sense to stop offering gift cards, which make zero financial sense for the consumer, but why stop offering a lucrative product that people buy because they're bad at logic, when you can just shut down accounts and greatly inconvenience people at no cost to you?
  • pflenker 10mo ago
    Gift cards are huge in the B2B business as they are used a lot as gifts from companies to employees.
    • stavros 10mo ago
      Seems like restricting their purchase to companies would be an easy way to prevent fraud.
      • ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago
        In the US, gift cards seem to be popular with consumers. I regularly see people in line at the supermarket, buying gift cards. I notice, because it’s a discrete workflow, that stands out. I doubt they are all feeding scammers. I think that charities often solicit gift cards.
        • stavros 10mo ago
          I'm sure they're not all scammers, but what's the upside to the consumer? Why not just give the money directly? Seems to me like all the upside is on the company, and all the risk is on the user.
          • cedilla 10mo ago
            For some reason, many people think that gifting money is gauche, but gift cards are somehow okay.
          • generic92034 10mo ago
• pflenker 10mo ago
  I don’t mean to defend this, but I know from experience that gift cards are frequently used for money laundring. The laws against that are very strict, incentivizing companies to overshoot and block false positives. At the same time, AML solutions tend to be a closely guarded black box which simply tells you to block a customer, finding out why is pretty difficult. To add more to the problem, some anti money Landry solutions are … AI powered.
  • supriyo-biswas 10mo ago
    > The laws against that are very strict, incentivizing companies to overshoot and block false positives. On that note[1] is a good read (Cmd+F: "suspicious activity report"), although this specific case is about gift cards, but the AML/T&S etc. space is remarkably similar. [1] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunking/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki...
    • nullfield 10mo ago
      An excellent blog. Their piece on credit card rewards programs is an excellent read as well.
  • embedding-shape 10mo ago
    > The laws against that are very strict, incentivizing companies to overshoot and block false positives. Yes, in many countries they are, but I don't think the laws are dictating Apple to completely turn off the accounts, but instead dictate that Apple should take measures against it. They could disable those gift card features + Apple wallet/pay if they suspect fraud, and if no one complains within a month, then disable the entire account, rather than start with disabling the account. Would give them space/time to investigate, and wouldn't be a huge pain in the ass when the inevitable false-positives happen, like in this case.
    • pflenker 10mo ago
      All this costs money for little return of invest. As long as the collateral damage is below a threshold that causes reputational damage, there is no business incentive to solve this.
• jasode 10mo ago
  >It's just insane that a gift card redemption can trigger this. It's also the buying of gift cards that can get Apple accounts locked: https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/r8b1lu/apple_will_permanently_disable_your_account_for/ https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/r8b1lu/apple_will_pe... If enough of these horror stories are publicized, people will learn to never buy/redeem Apple gift cards because of the real possibility of account bans. - Don't give Apple gift cards to family and friends: You're potentially ruining the recipient's digital life if they redeem it. - Don't buy Apple gift cards: You risk ruining your own digital life. If you've been given an Apple gc for Christmas -- and you have paranoia of the risks -- don't buy anything online that's tied to your Apple ID. Instead, go to the physical Apple store to redeem it. And don't buy an iPhone with it because that will eventually get assigned to an Apple ID. Instead, get a non-AppleID item such as the $249 ISSEY MIYAKE knit sock. I have thousands of credit-card reward points that could be traded in for Apple gift cards but I don't do it because Apple's over-aggressive fraud tracking means Apple's store currency is too dangerous to use.
  • crossroadsguy 10mo ago
    > such as the $249 ISSEY MIYAKE knit sock I mean that is a problem in itself :D
  • generic92034 10mo ago
    > If enough of these horror stories are publicized, people will learn to never buy/redeem Apple gift cards because of the real possibility of account bans. If you are trying to be a bad person you could weaponize that approach. You do not like person x, send them some Apple gift cards... :o
    • szundi 10mo ago
      In this case buy the gift card from some shady retailer with a one-time-use virtual card, and give this shady code to your friend. Or buy a physical card from aliexpress, the cheapest one with bad reviews.
    • Aurornis 10mo ago
• crossroadsguy 10mo ago
  Not only local copies but also at least own and use one device where you have your important data that is not on the same OS ecosystem as the other device(s) - also helps with things like 2FA, password manager, etc., if shit has hit the ceiling fan on the other device. In addition, I always suggest people to: - Not use big tech's cloud services - ever - But if you must, do not use many cloud services from just one provider (i.e no Google everything, no iCloud everything) i.e stop using "one account gateways". - Needless to say, it's time you had a domain and start paying for mail hosting (at least for critical stuff - you can actually buy a very cheap plan; and use that gmail/live-hotmail/yahoo/iCloud/whatever everywhere else) [0] - Keep an offline (but safe) copy of your "most" important data [1] and ways to remember (i.e cryptic hints) for your "most" important passwords - Gain some experience in fighting in consumer courts/forums (depending upon your country) - start early, start with e-com companies. A lot many times we don't put up a fight because we have never done it before and we give up always because every time it's a first time. Apple and Google make a mockery of consumers everywhere because we have allowed them to. In fact sometimes when we talk of lack of accessible support at Google and Apple (yes, Apple) we speak in a disdainful appreciation or awe :) [0] Some might disagree but disabling (or dev/nulling in a way) mail@, hi@, contact@, sales@ etc on your domain (esp. if you have catch-all enabled) goes a long way in terms of avoiding spam [1] It's also very important to have a tiered approach to data storage and backup strategies. There should be a very, very, very small subset of your personal data, including some of your photos and videos, that is really, really small in storage footprint that you can back up/sync to multiple locations and actually pay the full price for it at storage costs via your own setup, preferably using FOSS tools (which are becoming too good these days) out there.
  • basch 10mo ago
    At this point, are we relaying all emails to three or four locations for access to auth codes?
  • dansmith1919 10mo ago
    How much free time do you think the average person has to learn and set all this up? “You’re giving these companies your data and then dare to be angry when you lose it? Just get a degree in computer science and host it yourself!!1! I am very smart”
• duskdozer 10mo ago
  It genuinely makes me a little anxious whenever I come across people whose entire digital lives are dependent on a google/apple account. Just one misstep and it's all gone
  • goo 10mo ago
    it's really hard not to have at least one single point of failure. there's a case to be made that a single cloud account actually reduces the ways things can go wrong to just one point of failure, instead of a handful. e.g. email on a custom domain. your domain registrar is now a spof AND your email provider for your domain is a spof. and that's just email. There's obviously a middle ground and ways to have a strictly better personal data posture than before, but it's a multi faceted problem balancing usability, security, and resilience
• expedition32 10mo ago
  The real problem is that all these big tech companies have a callcenter in India with agents who cannot do anything to actually fix problems. And some of them don't even have that!
• maccard 10mo ago
  > what’s the rationale Their mega high risk - high value gift cards are effective for laundering stolen/fraudulent credit cards. Buy a $500 gift card with a stolen CC and sell it on FB marketplace for $400 - you’re up $400, the buyer saves $100, Apple get paid by the retailer and the CC company are (likely) on the hook. Of course the actual solution here is _don’t sell high value gift cards_, or require the Apple ID email at time of purchase/activation of the card
• harshbutfair 10mo ago
  I created a Google developer account with a separate email due to warnings like this. Then Google closed it because I left it idle too long and I didn't get the warning email. Sometimes you can't win.
• andai 10mo ago
  > It's definitely made me develop a do not trust any big corp mindset. I've been reading about Lovecraft's Old Ones. Apparently they have no ill will towards humans. They just sometimes cause harm without realizing it, while going about their business.
  • abustamam 10mo ago
    I watched an interview with Elon Musk a few years ago (circa 2018?). I'm no fan of him but he was asked about AGI and he kinda just said matter of factly, AI can view humanity as we view anthills. We don't really care about anthills, but if they're in the way of us building a neighborhood in an area then goodbye anthill. I'm not sure if I like that take because of how horrifying it is, but I found it very interesting that harm can be caused so nonchalantly by more powerful entities, since humans already view themselves as the most powerful entity.
    • airstrike 10mo ago
      People have been saying that for literal decades before Elon Musk said it.
      • baq 10mo ago
        That doesn’t make it untrue. Welcome to the today’s (whenever today was) lucky 10000, GP.
        • airstrike 10mo ago
          It doesn't make it untrue, it just sorta misattributes it. Or gives him undue credit as if he were some visionary, perpetuating that myth.
          • abustamam 10mo ago
            My intention wasn't to misattribute it. The fact is that I heard it first from Elon. I'm not sure what more you'd expect me to say.
• the_af 10mo ago
  I had similar trouble redeeming a gift card on Amazon. Twice. (thankfully they got resolved upon appeal). Enough that I am very wary of buying or redeeming gift cards now, especially more than one in a row. Apparently there's some sort of scam with gift cards, which must affect any platform which allows them, and legit uses often get flagged by automated systems. If they are so much trouble for Amazon/Apple I wonder why not disallow gift cards, instead of randomly banning users?
  • zx85wes 10mo ago
    Going through this at the moment. Was it a physical card? What evidence of purchase did they ask you to provide?
    • the_af 10mo ago
      It was a couple of years ago, it was virtual cards (I think one was a card given as reward by one of those legit review sites - edit: Gartner or one like those - which will reward you for providing reviews, and the other was money I had elsewhere that I converted to an Amazon card). I remember I went through some automated process which asked me for some account details, and after a few hours (fewer than one day, I remember as much) my account was unlocked. It was scary! What I remember puzzled me is that it was only two low-value cards. I would have understood the system being triggered by a lot of low value transactions, or a few large ones... but these were few and low value! Go figure. Sorry I don't remember more details. All I know is it made me scared of gift cards.
• charlieyu1 10mo ago
  I mean it gets triggered every time I download a new app. This has been bugged for years.
• cedws 10mo ago
  Apple is perfectly happy to take money from criminals though. My grandmother bought some Apple gift cards from a supermarket which turned out to be fake. The cards on display had been replaced/modified in a way that upon purchasing them it activated another card held by the criminals. Apple refused to take responsibility and so did the supermarket. Gift cards are loved by scammers as a way to receive and launder money, they should be subject to much more scrutiny and have stronger AML mechanisms.
  • mmmlinux 10mo ago
    At what point in this transaction did Apple have your money to return?
• ursAxZA 10mo ago
  Gift cards carry a surprisingly high fraud/AML risk. If a code ends up being part of a stolen-card → resale → redemption chain (which is more common than people think), companies like Apple may actually have to lock the entire account. So the trigger might not be arbitrary—it may just be a side effect of how risky gift-card-based payments are.
  • DamonHD 10mo ago
    I spent a long time working in finance one way or another, including as a founder/director of a small e-money issuer, and I have at least from this time ASSUMED that gift cards carry a very inflated AML risk. Plus I have no desire to carry scrip when I could have fungible cash or equivalent, so I would not buy a gift card. I have received a few.
    • ursAxZA 10mo ago
      I think you’re operating with the right mindset. Looking at the linked story, the trigger seems to have come from redeeming a gift card bought at a major retailer. Even if the purchaser uses a legitimate store, the user can’t really know the full supply-chain history of a prepaid code, and that uncertainty alone creates room for unexpected flags. For people who already have a credit card, gift cards are a fuzzy choice if the goal is simply to load balance onto an account. Something somewhere in the chain probably tripped a rule — maybe fraud-related, maybe a processing anomaly — and from the outside it’s impossible for the user to see which.
• citrin_ru 10mo ago
  No to excuse Apple but I think anti money laundering laws are at least partially to blame - they vary from country to country but typically impose penalties for not blocking suspicious activity at the same shielding from lawsuits for blocking innocent users. It's like lawmakers found a way to throw due process out of the window.
• tomaskafka 10mo ago
  The rationale is that an egregore called Apple, inc. is blindly fumbling ahead, unable to see the lives it is trampling. Note that this has nothing to do with the actual well meaning (mostly - see leadership emails leaks) people forming the egregore. The purpose of the company structure is isolating it from liabilities, and as the regulation which would force it to recognize the damage it did is mostly missing, thus the outcome. See also https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-called-legibility/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-call...
• teradome 10mo ago
  from the reddit story: "In the past two months, I purchased eleven Apple Gift cards from Amazon, Target, and apple.com, and added the amounts to my Apple account. The gift card amounts ranged from $25 to $150 each, totalling $905." This is literally a money laundering pattern The question will be why isn't this person just adding the money to their account directly, where is this money coming from, why are they structuring it like this
  • parisidau 10mo ago
    Whatever you’re quoting isn’t about me, the OP in this case…