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>where Apple bans accounts for redeeming legitimate gift cards. Is there any evidence of this happening with an actual legitimate gift card and bot one which w

>where Apple bans accounts for redeeming legitimate gift cards. Is there any evidence of this happening with an actual legitimate gift card and bot one which was stolen or originally purchased via credit card fund.

avhon1 10mo ago
https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/ https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/ > The card was purchased from a major brick-and-mortar retailer (Australians, think Woolworths scale; Americans, think Walmart scale)
- charcircuit 10mo ago
  >was already redeemed in some way This is the important quote showing that the gift card was not legitimate.
  - twelvedogs 10mo ago
    do you think that makes it ok? they walked into a store, tried to pay money to apple and as a result they had their stuff locked forever apple recommended they only buy gift cards from apple, but they still sell them in stores... obviously money is more important to them than the consumers but pretending apple have zero responsibility is silly
    - charcircuit 10mo ago
      >they had their stuff locked forever It was locked for less than a week. >but they still sell them in stores Unfortunately there are sketchy resellers that exist too.
      - direwolf20 10mo ago
        It was locked for a week because of the social media fuss that not everyone can raise. Otherwise it'd be forever.
        charcircuit 10mo ago
        How do you know that? It's entirely possible that it just takes time to go through Tim Cook's email and social media didn't play a factor.
        deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
      - deaux 10mo ago
        Hah, because it went viral. Good luck if you aren't able to reach a wide audience (99% of people aren't). Else it would've been locked for eternity. Stop defending atrocious behavior like this.
      - netsharc 10mo ago
        Your comment reminds me of this news story of a guy trapped in his work's elevator for the weekend. How was he supposed to know it'll be only for the weekend.
      - xp84 10mo ago
        It wasn't a sketchy retailer though, it was one Apple has authorized through its handpicked affiliate (in the US, this is probably Blackhawk who basically owns the third-party-giftcard-sales business). For Apple to say "Don't buy gift cards from our authorized retailers, or prepare to face incredibly harsh consequences due to fraud that you can't detect or predict" while continuing to sell them through those channels is morally bankrupt and completely unacceptable. I have no doubt fraud is a big problem. It is for all gift cards. But this is a 3 trillion dollar company -- and they make minimum 30% of every gift card sold in pure profit. If they can't secure those channels without torpedoing innocent customers' entire digital lives, they need to drop that channel.
      - avazhi 10mo ago
        Weird hill to die on bud. If somebody bought something from Walmart you wouldn’t insinuate he’s at fault because he bought it from a ‘sketchy retailer’. Just stop it lol. There is literally no way to defend Apple on that one.
  - wat10000 10mo ago
    What matters is that the purchaser had every reason to think that it was legitimate and they were not the malefactor in this scenario, but they still got banned.
    - charcircuit 10mo ago
      If you buy stolen property without knowing you still get punished by having the stolen property taken away. Just because you don't know, it doesn't mean you have not done anything wrong.
      - pixl97 10mo ago
        You will have your stolen property taken away, you won't have your entire house lock with bars and get evicted from the property.
      - wat10000 10mo ago
        Having your purchase taken away is not punishment. It's done because it's not actually yours, it still belongs to the person it was stolen from. It's a negative for the person who made the purchase, but that's just an unfortunate side effect. Unknowingly buying stolen property is not legally wrong. The typical law punishing receiving stolen property requires the receiver to know that it is stolen. Otherwise you're innocent of any wrongdoing, you just got ripped off. If unknowingly using a stolen gift card just meant you lost your money, nobody would be complaining about Apple's behavior here. The issue is that they didn't just lose their money, they also got their account locked, which locks up a lot of stuff completely unrelated to gift cards.
      - xp84 10mo ago
        Terrible analogy. The victim here bought the card from the retailer. Someone else had gained access to the secret contained on the card and stolen or attempted to steal the value on the card because Apple can't figure out how to sell a gift card securely. Our victim was the victim of the only theft that involved the gift card. Then Apple stole the person's whole digital life with no recourse because they are ham-fisted and don't care.
ThePowerOfFuet 10mo ago
Yes. https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/ https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/
- charcircuit 10mo ago
  That was already posted and it was not a legitimate gift card.
  - muppetman 10mo ago
    Yes it was. He purchased it from a legitimate reseller 100% legally and correctly.
    - charcircuit 10mo ago
      [flagged]
      - xp84 10mo ago
        Elsewhere in this thread, you assert that perhaps Apple simply reversed all this out of the kindness of their heart without regard for the social media blowup that this lucky victim was able to create. This is cognitive dissonance. If Apple reversed it due to their conscience, it's because they are pretty convinced this user is honest and Apple PR isn't (or didn't need to be) involved. If on the other hand, Apple has proof the user is not honest, then Apple PR took a huge hit for nothing by forcing Apple Support to unban them, when they could have said "Because we have documented proof the user couldn't have bought this from a legitimate reseller, we cannot unban them."
nake89 10mo ago
Slightly off-topic, but stuff like this does not just happen at Apple. When Cyberpunk 2077 came out, my wife bought it with her credit card and gifted the game to me. It was fine at first. I even managed to play through the game. However when coming back to the game a few months later (to see all the bugfixes), it was gone. I contacted the (gog) and they said it was removed due to automatic fraud detection and that the balance had been paid back to the original credit card (my wife's card, she had obviously not noticed this in her bank statement). Point being automatic fraud detection systems can wipe out stuff you purchased even months after the fact (or in some cases lock your account)... It feels kafkaesque.
- direwolf20 10mo ago
  Since it's gog at least you could download the game and save it somewhere.
  - charcircuit 10mo ago
    Using it would be copyright infringement since the license is revoked since it was refunded.
    - pixl97 10mo ago
      I, along with every AI company, give exactly zero fucks about copyright infringement.
      - charcircuit 10mo ago
        Training an AI model is fair use. Playing a video game without paying for it isn't.
        direwolf20 10mo ago
        If you buy milk at a store and then walk out of the store and then the store refunds you 2 days later, that's the store's problem and you're still allowed to drink the milk. You didn't steal the milk. Subscription logic only applies to subscriptions, and GoG is a simple exchange of money for goods, not a subscription.
twelvedogs 10mo ago
this kind of stuff happens all the time across major companies with minimised support. sure your google account is likely to be there tomorrow but it's only a very good chance that it's not locked forever. i would be surprised if there's any company with millions of users where .01 or .001 (still a LOT of users) just get screwed with zero recourse

avhon1 10mo ago

https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/ https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/ > The card was purchased from a major brick-and-mortar retailer (Australians, think Woolworths scale; Americans, think Walmart scale)

charcircuit 10mo ago
>was already redeemed in some way This is the important quote showing that the gift card was not legitimate.
- twelvedogs 10mo ago
  do you think that makes it ok? they walked into a store, tried to pay money to apple and as a result they had their stuff locked forever apple recommended they only buy gift cards from apple, but they still sell them in stores... obviously money is more important to them than the consumers but pretending apple have zero responsibility is silly
  - charcircuit 10mo ago
    >they had their stuff locked forever It was locked for less than a week. >but they still sell them in stores Unfortunately there are sketchy resellers that exist too.
    - direwolf20 10mo ago
      It was locked for a week because of the social media fuss that not everyone can raise. Otherwise it'd be forever.
      - charcircuit 10mo ago
        How do you know that? It's entirely possible that it just takes time to go through Tim Cook's email and social media didn't play a factor.
        deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
    - deaux 10mo ago
      Hah, because it went viral. Good luck if you aren't able to reach a wide audience (99% of people aren't). Else it would've been locked for eternity. Stop defending atrocious behavior like this.
    - netsharc 10mo ago
      Your comment reminds me of this news story of a guy trapped in his work's elevator for the weekend. How was he supposed to know it'll be only for the weekend.
    - xp84 10mo ago
      It wasn't a sketchy retailer though, it was one Apple has authorized through its handpicked affiliate (in the US, this is probably Blackhawk who basically owns the third-party-giftcard-sales business). For Apple to say "Don't buy gift cards from our authorized retailers, or prepare to face incredibly harsh consequences due to fraud that you can't detect or predict" while continuing to sell them through those channels is morally bankrupt and completely unacceptable. I have no doubt fraud is a big problem. It is for all gift cards. But this is a 3 trillion dollar company -- and they make minimum 30% of every gift card sold in pure profit. If they can't secure those channels without torpedoing innocent customers' entire digital lives, they need to drop that channel.
    - avazhi 10mo ago
      Weird hill to die on bud. If somebody bought something from Walmart you wouldn’t insinuate he’s at fault because he bought it from a ‘sketchy retailer’. Just stop it lol. There is literally no way to defend Apple on that one.
- wat10000 10mo ago
  What matters is that the purchaser had every reason to think that it was legitimate and they were not the malefactor in this scenario, but they still got banned.
  - charcircuit 10mo ago
    If you buy stolen property without knowing you still get punished by having the stolen property taken away. Just because you don't know, it doesn't mean you have not done anything wrong.
    - pixl97 10mo ago
      You will have your stolen property taken away, you won't have your entire house lock with bars and get evicted from the property.
    - wat10000 10mo ago
      Having your purchase taken away is not punishment. It's done because it's not actually yours, it still belongs to the person it was stolen from. It's a negative for the person who made the purchase, but that's just an unfortunate side effect. Unknowingly buying stolen property is not legally wrong. The typical law punishing receiving stolen property requires the receiver to know that it is stolen. Otherwise you're innocent of any wrongdoing, you just got ripped off. If unknowingly using a stolen gift card just meant you lost your money, nobody would be complaining about Apple's behavior here. The issue is that they didn't just lose their money, they also got their account locked, which locks up a lot of stuff completely unrelated to gift cards.
    - xp84 10mo ago
      Terrible analogy. The victim here bought the card from the retailer. Someone else had gained access to the secret contained on the card and stolen or attempted to steal the value on the card because Apple can't figure out how to sell a gift card securely. Our victim was the victim of the only theft that involved the gift card. Then Apple stole the person's whole digital life with no recourse because they are ham-fisted and don't care.

ThePowerOfFuet 10mo ago

Yes. https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/ https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/

charcircuit 10mo ago
That was already posted and it was not a legitimate gift card.
- muppetman 10mo ago
  Yes it was. He purchased it from a legitimate reseller 100% legally and correctly.
  - charcircuit 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    - xp84 10mo ago
      Elsewhere in this thread, you assert that perhaps Apple simply reversed all this out of the kindness of their heart without regard for the social media blowup that this lucky victim was able to create. This is cognitive dissonance. If Apple reversed it due to their conscience, it's because they are pretty convinced this user is honest and Apple PR isn't (or didn't need to be) involved. If on the other hand, Apple has proof the user is not honest, then Apple PR took a huge hit for nothing by forcing Apple Support to unban them, when they could have said "Because we have documented proof the user couldn't have bought this from a legitimate reseller, we cannot unban them."

nake89 10mo ago

Slightly off-topic, but stuff like this does not just happen at Apple. When Cyberpunk 2077 came out, my wife bought it with her credit card and gifted the game to me. It was fine at first. I even managed to play through the game. However when coming back to the game a few months later (to see all the bugfixes), it was gone. I contacted the (gog) and they said it was removed due to automatic fraud detection and that the balance had been paid back to the original credit card (my wife's card, she had obviously not noticed this in her bank statement). Point being automatic fraud detection systems can wipe out stuff you purchased even months after the fact (or in some cases lock your account)... It feels kafkaesque.

direwolf20 10mo ago
Since it's gog at least you could download the game and save it somewhere.
- charcircuit 10mo ago
  Using it would be copyright infringement since the license is revoked since it was refunded.
  - pixl97 10mo ago
    I, along with every AI company, give exactly zero fucks about copyright infringement.
    - charcircuit 10mo ago
      Training an AI model is fair use. Playing a video game without paying for it isn't.
      - direwolf20 10mo ago
        If you buy milk at a store and then walk out of the store and then the store refunds you 2 days later, that's the store's problem and you're still allowed to drink the milk. You didn't steal the milk. Subscription logic only applies to subscriptions, and GoG is a simple exchange of money for goods, not a subscription.

twelvedogs 10mo ago

this kind of stuff happens all the time across major companies with minimised support. sure your google account is likely to be there tomorrow but it's only a very good chance that it's not locked forever. i would be surprised if there's any company with millions of users where .01 or .001 (still a LOT of users) just get screwed with zero recourse