5 ms·

Locked out: How a gift card purchase destroyed an Apple account

70 points by nonfamous 10mo ago

gnabgib 10mo ago
Discussion on original source (1708 points, 3 days ago, 1062 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114
PaulHoule 10mo ago
Never have anything to do with gift cards, ever. If you get one as a gift give it back to the giver.
- steve_adams_86 10mo ago
  They're essentially a scheme to collect cash in advance and reap unspent cards, right? I don't know why anyone ever thought they made more sense than cash.
  - koolba 10mo ago
    Because people are generally weak minded and have been brainwashed into thinking that it’s tacky to give cash.
  - rk06 10mo ago
    because you can gift them to others and ensure that they use it. same for amazon gift cards
    - alexdw_mgzi 10mo ago
      The "ensure they use it" is the part that is uncertain, and thus the 'scam' aspect. Amazon (and other vendors) are betting that a significant percentage of end users will not actually use it, and the seller will get to keep the entire balance as profit.
      - steve_adams_86 10mo ago
        According to some not-very-thorough queries, somewhere from 10–19% of gift cards are never redeemed in the USA, which equates to tens of billions of dollars. Unreal. If even half of that is true, that's a tremendous amount of charity to corporations.
- ryanjshaw 10mo ago
  I had a relative ask me to buy them an Amazon voucher as a birthday gift, because they lived on the other side of the world, didn’t want to eat the SWIFT charges, and didn’t know how to offramp cryptocurrency. For some reason every card I put in wasn’t accepted, and then my 10 year old Amazon account was banned. I was even using a Fire TV at the time with the same account. Had to create a new account. Very annoying.
akkartik 10mo ago
Funny story: I can't get an Apple ID. I tried around 10 years ago, repeatedly would provide a password, get a notification, click on it, get asked to type my new password.. and get told the password was invalid. Anyways, I moved on with my life. I was only reminded of it this year when I got referred for a job at Apple.. and guess what, I still can't make an Apple ID. So now I can't ever get a job at Apple :) Oh well, first world problems.
- 3eb7988a1663 10mo ago
  This Kafka nightmare is somewhat funny when it does not impact your life, but with increasing centralization, I worry for the future. What happens when an AppleID/Google account in good standing is required to open a bank account? Go grocery shopping? Hold your drivers license? Apply for a job anywhere? Big tech has repeatedly shown that they are willing to ignore life destroying account workflows so long as they only impact a minority.
  - akkartik 10mo ago
    The best answer I have is: for those of us who start life with some level of privilege, it's important to make good decisions and manage your risk exposure. Life is geopolitics. But yeah, I'm not looking forward to the day I need to show a Google or Facebook account to receive government services. US Visa applications are already going in that direction.
  - anonymousiam 10mo ago
    This sort of thing is already becoming a reality. Not necessarily with Apple/Google IDs, but with email addresses. As the owner of a few dozen Internet domain names, I use some of them with catchalls so I can create new and unique email addresses for various entities I correspond with. Sometimes this has failed, because the entity uses some third-party validation service that can find no record anywhere of the existence of the new email address. So it's sometimes impossible to register a new account somewhere unless you use an email address that is "known" to the validation system. I'm not sure what "problem" they were trying to solve by doing it this way, but they've created a new problem by doing it. Also, sometimes I've tried to use very short email addresses such as: x@xxx.com, and they're flagged as invalid even though they're not. I've also had valid accounts disabled without notification because the email address I used had the name of the entity within. E.g. google@xxx.com Some companies assume you're trying to impersonate them if you do this, and silently disable existing accounts. Usually the tech support staff aren't even aware of these restrictions, which makes it even more difficult to recover.
iJohnDoe 10mo ago
What’s the latest on this from the OP? Did Tim Cook’s team respond? We live a dystopian world where a trillion dollar company can’t fix the account. Worse than that, out of their several hundred thousand employees, not a single one is capable or willing to fix it. Speaks volumes about our species in general and where we are headed. When the executives go on their spiritual retreats or their boondoggle get togethers to talk about company values to the employees; it would all seem so pointless and hypocritical when they can’t fix situations like this.
- add-sub-mul-div 10mo ago
  Not having to provide customer service is part of the magic that allows these tech companies to get to this size in the first place. Customer service doesn't scale.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Ferret7446 10mo ago
    The irony is that Apple's selling point (as far as I know) is good customer support. e.g. with Google at least you know you aren't getting any support
    - steve_adams_86 10mo ago
      My experience with Apple's support is abysmal. They left me without a working product for something like 6 months despite the product being faulty (bricked Studio Display). Years prior to that I had issues with a MacBook Pro. That also took way too long to repair (6 weeks), and I was treated as though I broke it rather than the hardware failed due to manufacturing defects. Very much a 'guilty until proven innocent' customer support experience. I hope that's not the typical experience, but it's certainly mine.
    - ssl-3 10mo ago
      Oh, nonsense. I filed a bug report about an issue in Google Maps once; this had to have been around 2006. A little over a decade after that, they emailed me and let me know that they'd fixed it. That's support -- right? (Right?) :)
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114
beached_whale 10mo ago
Since these companies have positioned themselves and infrastructure and are de facto utilities, we need to regulate them as such. If they are going to cancel an account there needs to be a transparent and open process that is fair, not autonomous fraud protection without recourse, just a goodbye. This is them pushing their costs, fraud protection, onto others who cannot stop it. Regulate them.
josefritzishere 10mo ago
My take away is never to buy Apple products. Their brand marketing. ng projects a level of quality they simply no longer have. This kind of support problem is unacceptable and Apple isn't going to improve the situation unless it impacts sales. (In all probability it will continue to get worse until it impacts sales.)

70 points by nonfamous 10mo ago

Discussion on original source (1708 points, 3 days ago, 1062 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114

PaulHoule 10mo ago

Never have anything to do with gift cards, ever. If you get one as a gift give it back to the giver.

steve_adams_86 10mo ago
They're essentially a scheme to collect cash in advance and reap unspent cards, right? I don't know why anyone ever thought they made more sense than cash.
- koolba 10mo ago
  Because people are generally weak minded and have been brainwashed into thinking that it’s tacky to give cash.
- rk06 10mo ago
  because you can gift them to others and ensure that they use it. same for amazon gift cards
  - alexdw_mgzi 10mo ago
    The "ensure they use it" is the part that is uncertain, and thus the 'scam' aspect. Amazon (and other vendors) are betting that a significant percentage of end users will not actually use it, and the seller will get to keep the entire balance as profit.
    - steve_adams_86 10mo ago
      According to some not-very-thorough queries, somewhere from 10–19% of gift cards are never redeemed in the USA, which equates to tens of billions of dollars. Unreal. If even half of that is true, that's a tremendous amount of charity to corporations.
ryanjshaw 10mo ago
I had a relative ask me to buy them an Amazon voucher as a birthday gift, because they lived on the other side of the world, didn’t want to eat the SWIFT charges, and didn’t know how to offramp cryptocurrency. For some reason every card I put in wasn’t accepted, and then my 10 year old Amazon account was banned. I was even using a Fire TV at the time with the same account. Had to create a new account. Very annoying.

akkartik 10mo ago

Funny story: I can't get an Apple ID. I tried around 10 years ago, repeatedly would provide a password, get a notification, click on it, get asked to type my new password.. and get told the password was invalid. Anyways, I moved on with my life. I was only reminded of it this year when I got referred for a job at Apple.. and guess what, I still can't make an Apple ID. So now I can't ever get a job at Apple :) Oh well, first world problems.

3eb7988a1663 10mo ago
This Kafka nightmare is somewhat funny when it does not impact your life, but with increasing centralization, I worry for the future. What happens when an AppleID/Google account in good standing is required to open a bank account? Go grocery shopping? Hold your drivers license? Apply for a job anywhere? Big tech has repeatedly shown that they are willing to ignore life destroying account workflows so long as they only impact a minority.
- akkartik 10mo ago
  The best answer I have is: for those of us who start life with some level of privilege, it's important to make good decisions and manage your risk exposure. Life is geopolitics. But yeah, I'm not looking forward to the day I need to show a Google or Facebook account to receive government services. US Visa applications are already going in that direction.
- anonymousiam 10mo ago
  This sort of thing is already becoming a reality. Not necessarily with Apple/Google IDs, but with email addresses. As the owner of a few dozen Internet domain names, I use some of them with catchalls so I can create new and unique email addresses for various entities I correspond with. Sometimes this has failed, because the entity uses some third-party validation service that can find no record anywhere of the existence of the new email address. So it's sometimes impossible to register a new account somewhere unless you use an email address that is "known" to the validation system. I'm not sure what "problem" they were trying to solve by doing it this way, but they've created a new problem by doing it. Also, sometimes I've tried to use very short email addresses such as: x@xxx.com, and they're flagged as invalid even though they're not. I've also had valid accounts disabled without notification because the email address I used had the name of the entity within. E.g. google@xxx.com Some companies assume you're trying to impersonate them if you do this, and silently disable existing accounts. Usually the tech support staff aren't even aware of these restrictions, which makes it even more difficult to recover.

iJohnDoe 10mo ago

What’s the latest on this from the OP? Did Tim Cook’s team respond? We live a dystopian world where a trillion dollar company can’t fix the account. Worse than that, out of their several hundred thousand employees, not a single one is capable or willing to fix it. Speaks volumes about our species in general and where we are headed. When the executives go on their spiritual retreats or their boondoggle get togethers to talk about company values to the employees; it would all seem so pointless and hypocritical when they can’t fix situations like this.

add-sub-mul-div 10mo ago
Not having to provide customer service is part of the magic that allows these tech companies to get to this size in the first place. Customer service doesn't scale.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- Ferret7446 10mo ago
  The irony is that Apple's selling point (as far as I know) is good customer support. e.g. with Google at least you know you aren't getting any support
  - steve_adams_86 10mo ago
    My experience with Apple's support is abysmal. They left me without a working product for something like 6 months despite the product being faulty (bricked Studio Display). Years prior to that I had issues with a MacBook Pro. That also took way too long to repair (6 weeks), and I was treated as though I broke it rather than the hardware failed due to manufacturing defects. Very much a 'guilty until proven innocent' customer support experience. I hope that's not the typical experience, but it's certainly mine.
  - ssl-3 10mo ago
    Oh, nonsense. I filed a bug report about an issue in Google Maps once; this had to have been around 2006. A little over a decade after that, they emailed me and let me know that they'd fixed it. That's support -- right? (Right?) :)

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

ChrisArchitect 10mo ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114

beached_whale 10mo ago

Since these companies have positioned themselves and infrastructure and are de facto utilities, we need to regulate them as such. If they are going to cancel an account there needs to be a transparent and open process that is fair, not autonomous fraud protection without recourse, just a goodbye. This is them pushing their costs, fraud protection, onto others who cannot stop it. Regulate them.

josefritzishere 10mo ago

My take away is never to buy Apple products. Their brand marketing. ng projects a level of quality they simply no longer have. This kind of support problem is unacceptable and Apple isn't going to improve the situation unless it impacts sales. (In all probability it will continue to get worse until it impacts sales.)