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Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

hey.paris

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Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#281

Post by crossroadsguy »

jasode wrote: post #239
x3sphere wrote: post #32

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 gift cards or something, not the entire account. But reading horror stories like this is is why I only use the very bare minimum of any of these cloud services. Keep local copies of everything. For developer accounts, I always create them under a separate email…

>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_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 potenti…

> such as the $249 ISSEY MIYAKE knit sock

I mean that is a problem in itself :D

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#282

Post by seszett »

kuon wrote: post #195

I treat apple ID and google ID like throwaway accounts. I would never trust anything valuable to either. The problem is that it is very hard for "usual people" to do that. I will also never have an electronic ID. We (Switzerland) were dumb enough to vote yes for it but we are giving away our freedoms eventually. We need regulations to ensure vendor cannot lock in users and cannot threaten them. Everything should work…

> I will also never have an electronic ID. We (Switzerland) were dumb enough to vote yes for it but we are giving away our freedoms eventually.

What's the link with the rest though? Your government already knows you, whether your id has your information printed with ink or stored on a chip.

Belgium has had electronic id for decades now and I fail to see how it has taken away any freedom, but it has enabled people to get their official documents online without having to make appointments in person in most cases.

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#283

Post by monerozcash »

subscribed wrote: post #197
x3sphere wrote: post #32

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 gift cards or something, not the entire account. But reading horror stories like this is is why I only use the very bare minimum of any of these cloud services. Keep local copies of everything. For developer accounts, I always create them under a separate email…

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…

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.

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#284

Post by crossroadsguy »

zerr wrote: post #276
jasode wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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_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 potenti…

Why does Apple sell giftcards?

For the similar reasons Apple sells socks.. maybe?

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#285

Post by expedition32 »

x3sphere wrote: post #32

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 gift cards or something, not the entire account. But reading horror stories like this is is why I only use the very bare minimum of any of these cloud services. Keep local copies of everything. For developer accounts, I always create them under a separate email…

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!

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#287

Post by badpun »

stavros wrote: post #235
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I joke that a $100 gift card is an "inferior $100 bill", because you can spend the bill anywhere, but the gift card only in one place. People give them as gifts because it shows marginally more effort than just giving cash.

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#288

Post by vasac »

heavyset_go wrote: post #154
christoph wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we must have passed peak Apple this week or something… I’ve had Clone Hero running badly on an ancient MacBook for my drums, so I decided to swap it out for an M1 Mini that was collecting dust on a shelf. I did a full erase, but I couldn’t get past its activation lock. At all. This is a piece of hardware I purchased on my credit card, for my company, (luckily) linked to a phone number I control and an email a…

This happened to me[1] a decade ago, now. Left Apple hardware on shelf for a year or two, Apple in the mean time did their iCloud migration or something, and my login account could no longer unlock the device. It's been effectively bricked since. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26482635

A similar thing happened to me - I lent a phone to my mother-in-law and created an account for her. She returned the phone once her own phone was fixed.

A few years passed, and a couple of weeks ago my phone broke, so I wanted to use that one until I bought a new one. It turned out that Apple had permanently deactivated the iCloud account on that phone. I could make calls, but I couldn’t install or update any apps, even though I still controlled the email address that was used to create the Apple account. Not that 5S is very useful these days but still.

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#289

Post by stanac »

immibis wrote: post #259
jasode wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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_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 potenti…

- Don't use Apple. Or Google.

If it was be that simple. In that case I would have to go to the bank for every transaction/payment I want to initiate online. Banking app doesn't work for jailbroken devices. Using PC to access banks website works, but transactions still require 2FA and they don't support any other 2FA flow except the one in the app.

Re: Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help

#290

Post by maccard »

x3sphere wrote: post #32

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 gift cards or something, not the entire account. But reading horror stories like this is is why I only use the very bare minimum of any of these cloud services. Keep local copies of everything. For developer accounts, I always create them under a separate email…

> 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

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