User Says Apple Disabled His iCloud, App Store, and Apple ID Accounts After Payment To Apple Card Failed (dcurt.is) 172
Dustin Curtis, writing on his blog: About ten days ago, when I went to update a few apps in the App Store on my Mac, I was met with a curious error: "Your account has been disabled in the App Store and iTunes." The internet is filled with stories from people whose Google accounts were locked for unexplained reasons, causing them to lose all of their data, including years of email, so I was somewhat concerned. But I'd never heard of similar cases involving Apple's services, and I wouldn't expect such behavior from a customer-focused company like Apple, so I figured it was a glitch and made a mental note to try again later. The next day, Music.app stopped working: "You cannot login because your account has been locked."
Now I was genuinely worried. I checked my phone and neither the App Store nor Apple Music would work there, either. A few minutes later, Calendar popped up an error â" it had stopped syncing. I immediately tried to call Apple Support from my Mac, but Apple's Handoff feature had been disabled as well. The first person I spoke to at Apple spent a while researching the issue and then told me there was nothing she could do but escalate the issue, and that I should expect a call "hopefully" within the next day. I asked what the problem might be, and she seemed as confused as I was. Although some Apple services were still working, like iMessage (thank God) and Photos, I was terrified that more services would suddenly become inaccessible or that I would lose the considerable amount of data I have stored in iCloud.
A couple of days later, I became impatient and contacted Apple Support again. This time, the representative mumbled something about Apple Card before saying that he also had no power to help me. Apple ID was a different department, he said, and they could only be contacted by email. He emailed them. I continued to wait. The next time I tried to use my Apple Card, it was declined. Strange. I checked the Wallet app, and the balance was below the limit. I remembered the Apple support representative mumbling about Apple Card, so I did some digging through my email to see if I could find a connection. As it turns out, my bank account number changed in January, causing Apple Card autopay to fail. Then the Apple Store made a charge on the card. Less than fifteen days after that, my App Store, iCloud, Apple Music, and Apple ID accounts had all been disabled by Apple Card. Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, which is fighting a legal battle with Apple, offered some commentary on this: "It's terrifying how much leverage Apple has over consumers and developers by integrating everything, locking us all in, and exerting total control. Normal companies respect the natural boundaries that exist between platforms and services. Apple does not! For Apple, every choke point they create is both a profit center and a lever to exert control. After blocking Fortnite updates from over a billion iOS users, Apple threatened to block Sign in With Apple -- which they forced us to adopt -- affecting Fortnite players on 7 platforms."
Now I was genuinely worried. I checked my phone and neither the App Store nor Apple Music would work there, either. A few minutes later, Calendar popped up an error â" it had stopped syncing. I immediately tried to call Apple Support from my Mac, but Apple's Handoff feature had been disabled as well. The first person I spoke to at Apple spent a while researching the issue and then told me there was nothing she could do but escalate the issue, and that I should expect a call "hopefully" within the next day. I asked what the problem might be, and she seemed as confused as I was. Although some Apple services were still working, like iMessage (thank God) and Photos, I was terrified that more services would suddenly become inaccessible or that I would lose the considerable amount of data I have stored in iCloud.
A couple of days later, I became impatient and contacted Apple Support again. This time, the representative mumbled something about Apple Card before saying that he also had no power to help me. Apple ID was a different department, he said, and they could only be contacted by email. He emailed them. I continued to wait. The next time I tried to use my Apple Card, it was declined. Strange. I checked the Wallet app, and the balance was below the limit. I remembered the Apple support representative mumbling about Apple Card, so I did some digging through my email to see if I could find a connection. As it turns out, my bank account number changed in January, causing Apple Card autopay to fail. Then the Apple Store made a charge on the card. Less than fifteen days after that, my App Store, iCloud, Apple Music, and Apple ID accounts had all been disabled by Apple Card. Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, which is fighting a legal battle with Apple, offered some commentary on this: "It's terrifying how much leverage Apple has over consumers and developers by integrating everything, locking us all in, and exerting total control. Normal companies respect the natural boundaries that exist between platforms and services. Apple does not! For Apple, every choke point they create is both a profit center and a lever to exert control. After blocking Fortnite updates from over a billion iOS users, Apple threatened to block Sign in With Apple -- which they forced us to adopt -- affecting Fortnite players on 7 platforms."
Cut from the same cloth (Score:5, Funny)
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, ... It's terrifying how much leverage Apple has over consumers and developers by integrating everything
He's just jealous. Typical CEO envy.
Re:Cut from the same cloth (Score:5, Informative)
While I agree that Epic’s complaints seem rather hypocritical, that does not render the point they’re making moot.
No poor people need apply. (Score:2, Funny)
Membership in the Glorious Apple Master Race is only for people with money and gainful employment. Everyone else go use Android, you peasants.
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Yep. I don't understand what he's complaining about.
Payment failed on his Apple card FFS.
Re:No poor people need apply. (Score:4, Insightful)
It apparently wasn't easy to figure out. No automated text messages from Apple your card is declined or expired?
Don't they want his money?
Re: No poor people need apply. (Score:3)
Not they emailed him immediately. he was to stupid to realize the error 6 weeks earlier.
Apple could be replaced with Microsoft, Google or epic in the zexenario. Do you think gsuite users suddenly lose access if they don't pay their payment?
Re: No poor people need apply. (Score:4, Informative)
Apple could be replaced with Microsoft, Google or epic in the zexenario.
Actually they could not really be so compared - iCloud with the calendar sync and handoff functionality are free services, so is the ability to browse iTunes and the App stores... Those are not something that customers are due to pay anything for. They're free to users with Apple hardware. Google , etc, do not disable the customers' free services like your personal Gmail account + calendar sync If you also have an unrelated Premium Service purchased on the same account and a payment fails or is declined - Not even if it's been 6 weeks and you still have not paid and reactivated the premium service... With Google, etc, You simply stop getting the paid services, and your free services from them keep working.
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Just Don't (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't use apple for all of your stuff. I liken this to don't keep all of your eggs in one basket. Apple is great for some things but not for keeping track of my money.
Re:Just Don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Definitely. Going all-in on any single entity is a recipe for disaster - even if you’re a fan.
Re:Just Don't (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, spread it all around so that vendors can take turns doing you in the caboose.
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Yes, spread it all around so that vendors can take turns doing you in the caboose.
I'd give you mod points if I had any... This is the exact truth of these competitive matters. Every company will take their turn, it's just a matter of *when.*
Re:Just Don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly this. Even as a longtime Apple user, I find the notion of tying myself to any one company like that to be madness. Accidents—both theirs and ours—can and do happen. Products can and do get "sunsetted". Companies can and do take turns for the worse.
Inasmuch as I do use any of Apple's apps or services, I always make sure that I can either walk away without hesitation or have a way to get out immediately should the need ever arise. Apple Card? It's a nice-to-have, not my primary card. iCloud Drive? Never more than a drag-and-drop away from being replaced. Mail, contacts, and calendars? I stopped letting Apple sync those for me years ago, and instead pay a respected third-party to manage them. News feeds? Screw Apple's proprietary News app; I've stuck with RSS and only consider clients that allow me to export my subscriptions in the industry-standard format. Podcasts? A third-party app and a service that supports data export using industry-standard data formats. Photos? They may live in Apple's ecosystem, but they also get synced as a flat directory of pictures to a Windows machine I own, then backed up from there both locally and in the cloud. Passwords? A third-party app that supports exporting to various industry-standard formats. Movie rentals? The data is already ephemeral and I already use competing stores when it suits me. Movie and music purchases? I don't buy anything that I can't load into Plex, but I've also purchased copies of several disc ripping and DRM stripping apps, so that's rarely a concern in practice. Messages? It would seemingly be the hardest to replace, but SMS is still the global standard and I've kept Messages tied to my phone number (instead of an email address), so everything and everyone should simply fall back to SMS if I ever get cut off from my Apple account.
All of which is to say, no matter which ecosystem you're in or companies you trust today, assume your relationship with those companies will eventually sour. Save yourself some significant headache later by planning out what you would do if you suddenly lost access to X or how you would deal with it if you needed to get your data out. And as you consider alternatives in the future, disregard any that are hostile to users exporting their data in standard formats. With technology and the culture around it moving as fast as it does, it isn't so much a matter of if you'll need to get out, but when.
Apple's Walled garden... (Score:2)
When you rent everything.... (Score:3)
Rent your services, music, etc. and guess what, don't pay your rent, don't get to play.
Re:When you rent everything.... (Score:4, Informative)
They disabled the free stuff too. And the charges went through - the payment was just past due.
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Re:When you rent everything.... (Score:5, Insightful)
But Apple just stopped services - it did not tell him that payment had not worked - this was the real problem.
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But Apple just stopped services - it did not tell him that payment had not worked - this was the real problem.
I realize it's a time honored tradition here to not RTFS, much less RTFA, but damn this is just lazy.
From the summary:
I did some digging through my email to see if I could find a connection. As it turns out, my bank account number changed in January, causing Apple Card autopay to fail.
Re:When you rent everything.... (Score:4, Informative)
I did RTFA and see that comment. It is not clear if the email was from Apple or from his bank saying that the a/c had changed -- which is how I understood that.
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Well, the real problem was " As it turns out, my bank account number changed in January," which is certainly not Apple's fault. Was he unaware that his bank account number changed? If so, was it because the bank didn't tell him or because he ignore the message?
Apple certainly could (and should) have had front line help desk people able to determine the account was locked for a declined payment, and willing to tell him that. But that's secondary to the actual problem at his end.
If you're going to put all you
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The problem is all the "services" that make it increasingly difficult for the average consumer to not put it on someone else's machine. Go ahead and try to find something the average consumer has any hope of setting up that let's them set up a family sync server that they own. It could be made easy and consumer friendly to do that, but Apple et. al. don't wanna.
laws of sale? can best buy repo your TV if your ca (Score:2)
laws of sale? can best buy repo your TV if your CC fails at the store?
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If you haven't payed for it yet, sure they can. In this case he was still paying off his iPhone:
This is the e-mail he got:
We’ve been unable to collect full payment for your new iPhone . As a result, we will block the device on the order from further access to the Apple iTunes and Mac App stores, and disable all accounts associated with the device purchased on the order.
He was unable to use his iPhone and the subscription to Apple Music (which I'm assuming gets paid from the same card and/or got 1 year
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Worse than that. The email mislabeled an M1 Macbook Pro as an "iPhone." They fully shut down the Apple ID, including the free services - did not work on any device.
As far as I can tell, there was never a point where a credit card charge was declined. They were just late on an Apple-branded credit card payment.
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You make him sound like a deadbeat. He was willing and able to pay, they just didn't bother to ask him about it after an automated process failed silently. Even when he called THEM, they couldn't say what the problem was. At the very least, on his first call, they should have told him the problem and accepted his new account number to fix everything. They also should have offered a tall apology for cutting everything off without calling him first.
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This is more like a single credit card charge for your TV fails, so they come repo your TV, couch, stove, cars, and the dog's water bowl even though those are paid up.
They even repo the complementary wall calendar they gave you for browsing in the store.
They COULD have called you and gotten the new CC number in under 5 minutes, but they didn't.
Bad summary (Score:3, Informative)
FTA, they didn't block access because he couldn't pay the card as such, but because the phone he was using was also going unpaid.
In my opinion the summary is trying to make you think this is the same kind of thing as being hit by a Google Blackhole. It was not, and was fixed after talking to someone.
I think his major comment was "It appears as though charges from Apple are special, and if your account is not 100% current, Apple will quickly take drastic action"
Re:Bad summary (Score:5, Informative)
No - their email mentioned an iPhone, but they actually meant M1 Macbook Pro. They canceled his trade-in credit and applied it to his card balance, and that actually did go through. It was just is credit card payment that failed, so he was past due. And Apple blocked the free services on the Apple ID - not just the paid ones.
Yes, they fixed it after he talked to multiple someones at multiple companies. And it took multiple business days after the payment issue was rectified - and Apple's own instructions for reactivation didn't work.
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My mistake.
Re:Bad summary (Score:5, Insightful)
It was not, and was fixed after talking to someone.
No it wasn't. It was fixed after talking to multiple people, chasing a company whose internal escalation process ignores customers and doesn't call them back and took several days to achieve.
Don't make light of this. It's time we stopped accepting the bullshit "customer service" we get given. Though props for actually being able to get someone. The best you can do with Google is tweet at them angrily.
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Yes. This was pointed out to me and I accepted it. Bad on me for not reading the article as carefully as I should have. Possibly bad on you for not reading the thread.
Serf'ing the Cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not (just) about Apple. It's about the new form of serfdom we have accepted by moving some of our most valuable possessions to "the cloud".
That magical cloud is a "place" where you store your valuable data on some computer you couldn't find in physical space if your tried, in a tenant-landlord relationship from hell governed by a ridiculously one-sided agreement you haven't read. Your home is no longer your castle when it belongs to someone else, who can evict you and confiscate your possessions when you aren't expecting it.
The question is, is there a better solution than building your own server you own, and running your own central storage? Or are we all doomed to digital serfdom?
Re:Serf'ing the Cloud (Score:5, Informative)
We? You, maybe, but not "we".
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This is great, and no, I don't think there's much better solution. I've done the "host my own" thing and its got a bunch of its own downsides.
The only hedge seems to be some hybrid solution of multiple clouds and/or self-hosting, of course with all the attendant costs and nuisance.
There might be some point in the future (5 years? a decade? never?) where the political system forces some kind of bill of rights compromise, but mostly I expect it will boil down to cloud companies providing a more "concierge" a
Re:Serf'ing the Cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is, is there a better solution than building your own server you own, and running your own central storage? Or are we all doomed to digital serfdom?
That's actually a perfect analogy... It used to be if you couldn't afford to defend yourself, you pretty much had to find someone who could, and subjugate yourself to them.
These days, if you have the knowledge and resources to run your own stuff, you can, otherwise, you become digitally subjugated to someone else who can.
The crazy part is that a lot of big companies are doing this to themselves, even when they *can* run their own stuff, just because it's a bit cheaper.
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> The question is, is there a better solution than building your own server you own, and running your own central storage?
It's always, "build, buy, or rent". I personally own storage and rent Xen slices running on hydro power cheaper than I can run them; Debian installs are doing what I need on both. I'm trading some privacy for cheap hosting.
But somebody could buy a Helm and a Synology and get something similar, giving up some more control on software but keeping more data locally.
Or they could go ful
Well, you chose Apple. (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple's selling point is exactly that it thinks and decides for you, so you don't "have to". Which necessarily comes down to you not "having to" be an individual, but "enjoying the comfort" of keeping your brain off, and effectively be part of a bigger swarm individual.
You knew that when joining them. They are the boss now. And you wanted that. If that is your choice of how you want to exist, and it makes you happy, we're not stopping you.
So now don't act surprised that they have power over you and you're dependent on them, just because they made a mistake. It's not a mistake, but "your" choice... unless you chose to be a distinct individual again. In which case, staying with Apple is a bad idea, buddy.
Re:Well, you chose Apple. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, thank God I chose Google's Android, so I never have to worry about all my services being shut down due to them disabling a shared ID.
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Yes, thank God I chose Google's Android, so I never have to worry about all my services being shut down due to them disabling a shared ID.
Minor difference being that your Android device doesn't turn into a brick if Google tells you to go away... there are alternates to the Play Store, and you can always side load applications. Apple is a captive market.
How is this different than anything else? (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything in life is like this: payment hiccups result in the service being shut down. The nicer orgs give you warnings and grace periods, but typically one cannot depend on that.
Re: How is this different than anything else? (Score:2)
The issue is Apple is both the store and the payment processor. Other stores would just charge the card, give you the goods, and have no knowledge or interest in your ability to pay your credit card. In this case, the tight relationship Apple has between store and payment means the store charged his card then failed to provide services because his credit card company said he was a risk. That doesn't happen with other stores or cards. This is a unique Apple problem.
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Everything in life is like this: payment hiccups result in the service being shut down. The nicer orgs give you warnings and grace periods, but typically one cannot depend on that.
Are you saying Apple isn't nice? How shocking!
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This is why I hate software subscriptions (Score:2)
Companies should at least offer perpetual licenses, what if I'm a starving artist or startup and I can't afford an adobe subscription? I lose the ability to create work. With perpetual licenses at least you maintain your ability to run the current purchased release.
Re: This is why I hate software subscriptions (Score:2)
I agree but too many finance departments at companies that make up the biggest revenue source care about the short term financials/capital position. Investors in companies that have subscription based software or hardware should be given the complete picture and risk. Right now as far as I know, subscription makes your âoethis quarterâ expenses look good to investors.
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Perpetual licenses for ongoing services makes no sense.
The best licensing I've seen recently was I purchased a 1 year license for some software. During that time I could download the software and updates. At the end of the license, my software continued to run, I just couldn't update it. The guy selling it (the sales line AT the vendor) actually said a lot of people save money by only renewing every OTHER year if they don't feel they will need phone support all the time. Every other year you just can't
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Your example is still a perpetual license.
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Adobe tries to lock every user in forever, but what does that do?
It encourages competition to come in and offer things like Pixelmator and others who offer great tools for less and which a lot of students (read future employed & startup creators) use and will use into the future. Some will work where Adobe is on all the machines, but Adobe will lose some business permanently.
The government & companies know how Apple, Adobe and others work and so they often & so they often set up special deals o
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Usually engineering programs can be bought with a perpetual license partially of the reasons above and partially for budgetary reasons.
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It really makes my think Adobe is shooting themselves in the foot... just with a very slow-moving bullet.
Every designer I personally know got their start... back in ye olden days of installing from a CD and entering a license code... with pirated copies of Photoshop, Illustrator, and on. Eventually, they grep up and quit designing rave flyers, concert posters, and T-shirt and sticker designs for their friends, and got real jobs or started real businesses where they paid for their Adobe suite and wrote it o
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Companies should at least offer perpetual licenses, what if I'm a starving artist or startup and I can't afford an adobe subscription? I lose the ability to create work. With perpetual licenses at least you maintain your ability to run the current purchased release.
Maybe you missed the 90's when that was a thing, then they realized the public was stupid with mmo's, everyone in silicon valley was paying attention to what garriot and Ralph got away with, they literally got the public to pay to steal role playing games from themselves and pay for the priviledge for not owning their own software. That's why the entire tech industry has been celebrating the stupidity of the game buying public.
See here "the client to cloud revolution", better known as the return of mainfra
Customer service (Score:2)
In over 20 years of working professional IT, employed and self-employed, I can safely say that Apple telephone (and written) customer service is the most abysmal that I've ever experienced, for any company, ever.
To the point that - when they failed basic legal obligations to register a written complaint, after refusing to register a telephone complaint, after several days of being passed from pillar to post (I alone spoke to 10 different countries just from their one support line!) they couldn't even be bot
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As of last week, Comcast (and many national ISPs) rank as the worst experiences overall. They'll run your credit report before you even try to sign-up for service (yeah that's happened) and they'll bill you multiple times for the same month of service before your service is even setup (the Internet is littered with those stories and
They Forget (Score:2)
People always forget this aspect when companies become monopolies: they can and will screw you along every link of their chain.
I once had a Chase bank account. which they closed, literally, for no reason. As in they told me "our contract states you or we can cancel the relationship at any time, and we're exercising that right. we don't need to tell you why". No credit hit, no illegal action, just Chase deciding they didn't like me for some reason they wouldn't tell me about. I'm pretty sure it was because
All your apples in one basket (Score:3)
my App Store, iCloud, Apple Music, and Apple ID accounts had all been disabled by Apple Card
If only there was a non-Apple way of using the internet and getting services ....
Sounds mostly self-inflicted (Score:2)
"I remembered the Apple support representative mumbling about Apple Card, so I did some digging through my email to see if I could find a connection. As it turns out, my bank account number changed in January, causing Apple Card autopay to fail."
Bank account numbers don't change on their own. He didn't check his email. He didn't check the payment status of the Apple Card in his wallet. Because of that, there was a cascading series of lockouts.
Tell me again how this isn't the poster's negligence leading
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"I remembered the Apple support representative mumbling about Apple Card..."
But did he do anything about it at the time? Nope.
Goldman Sachs handles that, not Apple.
The big lesson (Score:2)
Re: The big lesson (Score:2)
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15 Days??? (Score:2)
He had autopay set up. His account number changed (how often does this happen?!?), causing autopay to fail. 15 days later Apple started locking features. How did he go 15 days without noticing his payment failed? How often does he check his balance? What happened to other autopay services (most notably a mortgage or utilities)? When my debit card changes, I need to contact 5-8 companies with updated card number and expiration date.
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You might have missed this, but his Apple card was still operational. He could have taken that and swiped it at any store that takes Mastercard and walked out with goods and services. This was just a late payment. Normally just a late fee and some interest, not everything being shut down - his charges still went through.
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This was just a late payment.
Don't hand wave that away, his failure to keep his account information up to date caused his whole mess. That he didn't know that his own bank account number changed tells me all I need to know about his blog.
-Gotta pay to play.
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Again, the card was still active and can be charged to.
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Now maybe auto pay allows a fallback for payment, either he had not set that up or it simply does not work - but no one has mentioned that a fallback exists so I assume it does not (exist). Also, hoping the card will be used as a fallback is not a plan.
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I still am not sure you're reading it right.
The auto-pay was for their bank account to make payments on their credit card bill. At no point was the credit card deactivated. No payments charged to the card have yet been declined. Apple suspended everything on the mere suspicion that the user might remain delinquent on their credit card bill.
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Why do we have to read about it? He lost track of his finances and became a dead-beat.
It's been said before... (Score:2)
...putting your data in "the cloud" is simply putting it on someone else's computer---one which you have no authority to manage. Do the owners of that computer have the same ideas about how valuable your data is to you? (How quaint that you answered "yes".) Are they backing it up? How would you ever know?
Just the "free" market at work (Score:2)
Why are you asking the guy suing Apple? (Score:3)
Hypocritical (Score:2)
I'm sure if your automatic payment fails to Epic, they'll disable your access as well.
'my bank account number changed in January' (Score:3, Insightful)
Do they not teach basic home accounting anymore? Instead of whining all over social media about it, try to keep track of your financials. Expiration dates and bank account changes don't update themselves...
-Good thing most people don't use cash, apparently they can't even keep track of their own bank account number.
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid... (Score:2)
I wouldn't expect such behavior from a customer-focused company like Apple
Just stop... really... They don't and never have cared about you any more than Google does (other than going all the way back to Woz.. he loved you dearly)
'Locking us in'? (Score:2)
...by integrating everything, locking us all in, and exerting total control
No, you locked YOURSELF in. There is absolutely no need to put everything on Apple's 'cloud' and use all their services 100% (and why even use an 'Apple Card'?).
Eliminate Apple Leverage (Score:3)
Wrong place to comment (Score:2)
De-connect your stuff (Score:2)
Connecting everything up benefits the CONNECTOR, not the user. Otherwise they would not let you do it.
Have a ipad? Do not get an apple card.
Have a twitch account? Do not connect it to your amazon account. Use a different email.
They can not force you to integrate, there is little benefit, and the potential problems are HUGE.
No surprise (Score:3)
If you're an Apple user, you chose to live in their garden with all of its "protections", limits, and constraints. This is no secret and hasn't been for a long time. You made a conscious decision to shell out money for this and therefore agreed to it.
Re:You're holding it wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, no. If you've ever accidentally been a few days late on a credit card bill payment, charges still go through. And they went through on his card too. They shut down all his services anyway because they thought he was at risk of never paying despite not even being one billing cycle past due.
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All of his Apple services were current and paid up. None of his charges to Apple were declined. His payment on the Apple-branded credit card is the only thing that failed. He could take the credit card into a store and rack up charges if he wanted to.
Re: Freaking LOL! (Score:3, Informative)
Probably, but the problem is the suggested solution being sold by the loudest anti-tech luddites is socialism. How would having state ownership of companies provide any better solution? The solution to being punched in the face isnâ(TM)t to be fucked in the ass.
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The card was still accepting charges. It was just past due on payment. They could walk into any store that accepts Mastercard and buy something right that moment - just not from Apple. Also, they disabled the free aspects of his Apple account.
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Do you apply the same logic to services that Apple provides gratis?
Do you think Apple should not have notified him that his payment method -- which had worked before -- stopped working, and that his account would be suspended if he didn't fix it?
Ultimately, he screwed up because he failed to update his autopay info, but Apple screwed up just as much by not telling him about the failure before disabling so many services, and then they screwed up again by not being able to clearly tell him why they suspended
Re:confusing argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is apple card linked to apple applications?
It's like having a home loan through a Ford subsidy, forgetting to make a mortgage payment, and your car won't start.
Re:confusing argument (Score:5, Insightful)
With any other credit card, his failure to pay would've caused late fees to be added to his card. If it went on long enough, his card would've been canceled with the card company potentially suing him to recoup the unpaid money. (Usually they'll just negotiate a lower sum in lieu of full payment, or sell the debt to a debt collector if they think the odds of getting repaid are slim.) But most pertinent to this case, purchases he had made with the card would not have been reversed. If pay my water bill, my car registration, my cell phone bill, and my Netflix subscription with a credit card, and I don't pay off my card, my water doesn't get shut off, my car registration revoked, my cell phone stops working, and my Netflix account frozen. Those things continue to work until I fail to make the next payment. I'd be forced to use a different card because the card I hadn't paid off would've frozen the card and auto-denied new charges. But past charges couldn't be reversed because of my non-payment.
What's going on here is the Apple is taking advantage of the integration between its services and its credit card, to extend punishment for failure to pay the card to include Apple things paid for with the card. The correct analogy here is what happens if you bought stuff at Macy's with your Macy's card, then failed to pay off the card. Does Macy's treat it as if the purchase and the card payment were separate transactions as with a traditional credit card? Or does it try to repossess the goods you purchased with the card?
Anyway, I try to keep my finances separate specifically for this reason. When I was shopping for a mortgage, I was careful to avoid the banks where I have accounts. If my mortgage payment failed to post for some reason, I didn't want the bank to freeze my checking account because of it. I ran into a similar issue in business. A customer's payment check bounced, and our bank decided to froze our entire business account that the check was deposited into. It was 2 days before they admitted they overreacted and unfroze the account. Following that escapade, I opened up a separate account (at a different bank) specifically for depositing customer payment checks, and I'd write a check to ourselves to transfer the money into our main acount.. That way any problems with incoming receipts has zero effect on our ability to make outgoing payments.
Re: (Score:3)
At the same time, the CC company would call you about the missing payment and would be perfectly happy to accept your alternative payment method over the phone. If you called them, they would not just shrug when you asked what was wrong and then have someone else fail to call you back about it that day.
Re:confusing argument (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm guessing he should talk to a lawyer regarding the Fair Debt Collection Act.
15 USC 1692f
A debt collector may not use unfair or unconscionable means to collect or attempt to collect any debt. Without limiting the general application of the foregoing, the following conduct is a violation of this section:
[...]
(6) Taking or threatening to take any nonjudicial action to effect dispossession or ***disablement of property*** if --
(A) there is no present right to possession of the property claimed as collateral through an enforceable security interest;
(B) there is no present intention to take possession of the property; or
(C) the property is exempt by law from such dispossession or disablement.
Re:The trouble with end-stage capitalism (Score:2, Interesting)
This situation with cloud computing shows what can happen in end-stage capitalism. The person effectively has no rights when their only options are to rent instead of to buy, and that rental is governed by a one-sided agreement from hell that the average person cannot comprehend, nor would we have the resources to fight.
Imagine the difference between a government service, with open oversight by your government that you elected, versus a private company which can hide behind trade secrets.
Anyway, all economi
Re: (Score:2)
Give me a break! I'd much rather be in a democracy where I can vote for change, rather than a capitalist oligarchy where the monopolies rule.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you think the politicians in control of all industry would want to suddenly give that up because of some pesky election? You and what army is going to make them? You don't own the army, they do. And the police. State ownership of everything means the state is more powerful than Bill Gates, Bezos, Elon Musk, Zuckerberg, others you never heard of, and all the media clowns .. at least they all have to compete with each other.
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It happened to Trump. He tried really hard to throw my ballot in the shredder and elect himself, but it didn't work even after he tried to throw his running mate under the bus.
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Maybe you should get educated and see that free markets have never existed and the rich have always taken state subsidies.
Look at all these "free market" oil subsidies.
https://www.imf.org/en/Publica... [imf.org]
The level of education of the average slashdot commenter is clearly heading downward.
Re: (Score:2)
The situation with Apple shows that this can and does happen with Capitalism. Apple is not a state owned entity and here it is. He doesn't even have the option to vote against "Tim Apple" in the next election.
The coyote is complaining to you that the latest Acme product has beaten, burned, and flattened him and you are clucking that he should have chosen Acme products instead?
Don't you feel silly now?