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I'm the author of that Reddit post. I should probably update it to clarify that I didn’t just purchase the gift cards, but also redeemed them. I don’t think it

by quinncom 10mo ago

I'm the author of that Reddit post. I should probably update it to clarify that I didn’t just purchase the gift cards, but also redeemed them. I don’t think it was purchasing them that triggered the lock on my Apple account. I mean, after all, how would they know what my Apple account is until they’re redeemed?

jasode 10mo ago
>, how would they know what my Apple account is until they’re redeemed? To add context, your reddit post also mentioned: >, I purchased eleven Apple Gift cards from [...], and apple.com, and added the amounts to my Apple account. I'm not saying the following applies to you but one can buy Apple Gift Cards using their Apple ID. After adding gift cards to the ecommerce shopping bag on Apple.com, it offers the option : "Check out with your Apple Account" So Apple would know the exact AppleID at the time-of-sale instead of waiting until redemption. If for some reason Apple's fraud detection system doesn't like the transaction (e.g. unusual ip address from Mexico instead of USA, or too many high-value cards in a certain time period, or other black-box opaque heuristic) ... then the buyer puts their Apple account at risk. Fraud prevention heuristics are insanely aggresive these days... Last week, I bought a Netflix subscription and 5 days later, Netflix cancelled the membership for no apparent reason. I got on a customer support chat with Netflix and the agent said it was cancelled because of the credit-card #. It didn't pass their fraud prevention system and to try using another card. At least Netflix automatically refunded the entire amount back to me -- whereas Apple keeps the gift card balance for itself after locking accounts. In another incident, I used a Chase credit-card at a physical Apple store to buy 2 iPhones on 2 separate receipts. The first iPhone sale was a success. The 2nd iPhone transaction just 1 minute later was denied and Chase locked the entire account. I had to call Chase customer service and recite the make & model of a car I had 20 years ago to prove my identity for them to re-activate the credit card!
quickthrowman 10mo ago
I’m not trying to be rude, but what is the point of buying and then redeeming gift cards yourself? I just pay Apple with my credit card when I want to buy something. Is this some kind of weird credit card rewards churning thing? Are you unbanked? I don’t understand why you’d voluntarily add unnecessary extra steps. A credit card offers far more protections to consumers than a gift card. Given the amount of false positives, Apple should have an appeal process for innocent users to regain access to their accounts. It would be nice if this applied to all big tech companies, losing an email address can make other accounts difficult or impossible to access.
- wpm 10mo ago
  Lots of stores offer deals on gift cards, essentially giving g you a discount at the cards’ store. $100 Apple gift card for $80 means you can buy something at Apple for $20 off if it is less than $100.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
- floam 10mo ago
  I buy gift cards often - if I know I’m going to spend money on Uber, why not give myself 25% off $100 before even any actual promotions are applied?
  - narmiouh 10mo ago
    News for you, apparently Uber realizes that you have a gift card payment and jacks up your rates https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/1hb6rnj/rumors_uber_lyft_charge_more_for_those_with/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/1hb6rnj/rumors...
- loloquwowndueo 10mo ago
  If you want to trade in an old phone without doing it at the time you purchase a new one, the only way to receive the trade in value is via an Apple gift card. I was looking forward to getting $160 gift card for my old iPhone 11 but after reading all this I think I’ll just leave it in a drawer.
  - nullfield 10mo ago
    Not so. I just traded in/upgraded (on a Verizon contract, but AT the Apple Store; maybe that affects this… but still paying Apple directly) and they handed me the new phone and had FedEx send a trade-in mailer that I had a while to send back with my trade-in.
    - 10mo ago
markus_zhang 10mo ago
My recommendation is to completely drop the Apple ecosystem, however painful it is. I do use an iPhone but I treat it as just a phone. If Apple locks me out I dgaf.
- Aurornis 10mo ago
  Comments like this remind me of my distant relatives who proudly live out in the countryside and avoid traveling to big cities for any reason. They see a lot of Fox News headlines about bad things happening in big cities and they've concluded those bad things are happening all the time. So they constantly congratulate themselves for not going to the nearest city, look down upon people who spend time in cities, warn us that we're at risk of the bad things happening, and never miss an opportunity to talk about how bad cities are in conversations. Now replace big cities with big tech and that's exactly how a lot of these Hacker News comments read.
  - igor47 10mo ago
    Huh you got me with this analogy. On the other hand, can't this be said about any bad thing? Few bad things are always bad. A few examples: * My liberal relatives won't own guns because they keep hearing stories about how guns are deadly, even though I own guns and nobody's died yet * My friend's kid won't pet puppies because he heard they bite sometimes * My aunt in Moscow didn't want to vote for Putin because he's "authoritarian", but my life is going great How do you distinguish between things that are actually bad vs overreactions? Maybe it's just based on individual risk tolerance? I don't see the need to put my digital life in the hands of some unresponsive corporation, but the risk is worth it to you and we just have to agree to disagree?
    - Aurornis 10mo ago
      Bad isn't a binary judgment you can place on something. Everything has a level of risk and reward associated with it. It's up to everyone to judge the risk versus reward. The flaw I see a lot in the HN comments trying to get people to abandon Big Tech is that they're coming from people who overestimate the risks while underestimating the benefits to other people. Abandoning a lot of convenience for fear of some rare outcome might be a perfectly good choice for someone who doesn't use those conveniences (e.g. Linux user who doesn't want cloud storage for photos because they enjoy setting up their own elaborate backup schemes) but it's not a good tradeoff for the average person who just wants their photos backed up and either doesn't want to or doesn't trust themselves to set up a good backup solution.

jasode 10mo ago

>, how would they know what my Apple account is until they’re redeemed? To add context, your reddit post also mentioned: >, I purchased eleven Apple Gift cards from [...], and apple.com, and added the amounts to my Apple account. I'm not saying the following applies to you but one can buy Apple Gift Cards using their Apple ID. After adding gift cards to the ecommerce shopping bag on Apple.com, it offers the option : "Check out with your Apple Account" So Apple would know the exact AppleID at the time-of-sale instead of waiting until redemption. If for some reason Apple's fraud detection system doesn't like the transaction (e.g. unusual ip address from Mexico instead of USA, or too many high-value cards in a certain time period, or other black-box opaque heuristic) ... then the buyer puts their Apple account at risk. Fraud prevention heuristics are insanely aggresive these days... Last week, I bought a Netflix subscription and 5 days later, Netflix cancelled the membership for no apparent reason. I got on a customer support chat with Netflix and the agent said it was cancelled because of the credit-card #. It didn't pass their fraud prevention system and to try using another card. At least Netflix automatically refunded the entire amount back to me -- whereas Apple keeps the gift card balance for itself after locking accounts. In another incident, I used a Chase credit-card at a physical Apple store to buy 2 iPhones on 2 separate receipts. The first iPhone sale was a success. The 2nd iPhone transaction just 1 minute later was denied and Chase locked the entire account. I had to call Chase customer service and recite the make & model of a car I had 20 years ago to prove my identity for them to re-activate the credit card!

quickthrowman 10mo ago

I’m not trying to be rude, but what is the point of buying and then redeeming gift cards yourself? I just pay Apple with my credit card when I want to buy something. Is this some kind of weird credit card rewards churning thing? Are you unbanked? I don’t understand why you’d voluntarily add unnecessary extra steps. A credit card offers far more protections to consumers than a gift card. Given the amount of false positives, Apple should have an appeal process for innocent users to regain access to their accounts. It would be nice if this applied to all big tech companies, losing an email address can make other accounts difficult or impossible to access.

wpm 10mo ago
Lots of stores offer deals on gift cards, essentially giving g you a discount at the cards’ store. $100 Apple gift card for $80 means you can buy something at Apple for $20 off if it is less than $100.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
floam 10mo ago
I buy gift cards often - if I know I’m going to spend money on Uber, why not give myself 25% off $100 before even any actual promotions are applied?
- narmiouh 10mo ago
  News for you, apparently Uber realizes that you have a gift card payment and jacks up your rates https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/1hb6rnj/rumors_uber_lyft_charge_more_for_those_with/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/1hb6rnj/rumors...
loloquwowndueo 10mo ago
If you want to trade in an old phone without doing it at the time you purchase a new one, the only way to receive the trade in value is via an Apple gift card. I was looking forward to getting $160 gift card for my old iPhone 11 but after reading all this I think I’ll just leave it in a drawer.
- nullfield 10mo ago
  Not so. I just traded in/upgraded (on a Verizon contract, but AT the Apple Store; maybe that affects this… but still paying Apple directly) and they handed me the new phone and had FedEx send a trade-in mailer that I had a while to send back with my trade-in.
  - 10mo ago

markus_zhang 10mo ago

My recommendation is to completely drop the Apple ecosystem, however painful it is. I do use an iPhone but I treat it as just a phone. If Apple locks me out I dgaf.

Aurornis 10mo ago
Comments like this remind me of my distant relatives who proudly live out in the countryside and avoid traveling to big cities for any reason. They see a lot of Fox News headlines about bad things happening in big cities and they've concluded those bad things are happening all the time. So they constantly congratulate themselves for not going to the nearest city, look down upon people who spend time in cities, warn us that we're at risk of the bad things happening, and never miss an opportunity to talk about how bad cities are in conversations. Now replace big cities with big tech and that's exactly how a lot of these Hacker News comments read.
- igor47 10mo ago
  Huh you got me with this analogy. On the other hand, can't this be said about any bad thing? Few bad things are always bad. A few examples: * My liberal relatives won't own guns because they keep hearing stories about how guns are deadly, even though I own guns and nobody's died yet * My friend's kid won't pet puppies because he heard they bite sometimes * My aunt in Moscow didn't want to vote for Putin because he's "authoritarian", but my life is going great How do you distinguish between things that are actually bad vs overreactions? Maybe it's just based on individual risk tolerance? I don't see the need to put my digital life in the hands of some unresponsive corporation, but the risk is worth it to you and we just have to agree to disagree?
  - Aurornis 10mo ago
    Bad isn't a binary judgment you can place on something. Everything has a level of risk and reward associated with it. It's up to everyone to judge the risk versus reward. The flaw I see a lot in the HN comments trying to get people to abandon Big Tech is that they're coming from people who overestimate the risks while underestimating the benefits to other people. Abandoning a lot of convenience for fear of some rare outcome might be a perfectly good choice for someone who doesn't use those conveniences (e.g. Linux user who doesn't want cloud storage for photos because they enjoy setting up their own elaborate backup schemes) but it's not a good tradeoff for the average person who just wants their photos backed up and either doesn't want to or doesn't trust themselves to set up a good backup solution.