If CloudFlare can do public post-mortems then so can Apple.
Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
11–20 of 479 posts
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#12Every time a read a story like this, I feel an atavistic desire to self-host eveything. But I've had my Google account for 20 years now; the die is cast.
I'm slowly decoupling things and hosting parts of my infrastructure myself. Let it be on a cloud server or a home machine.
Doing everything and/or all-at-once is not practical, but having backups for most critical infrastructure helps a lot, and when it's rolling, it rolls without effort.
One can go step by step and call it's done when it becomes too much to bear or satisfactorily decoupled.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#13Related: there is a known scam where someone will ask for payment by things like Ebay gift cards. To "prove you have the card", you are asked to read off just the last few digits of the card - which unbeknownst to the intended victim is actually all that is needed to redeem the card. You can reliably reconstruct a SSN that is missing the first digits, if you know where the person lived when they filed for it, but tha…
> You can reliably reconstruct a SSN that is missing the first digits, if you know where the person lived when they filed for it, but that's not the same thing.
This used to be true, but isn’t for SSNs assigned since I think 2011 - the exact year could be wrong, that’s from memory. Since that switch, the component that used to be geographical is assigned randomly.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#14> Update 18 December 2025: We’re back! A lovely man from Singapore, working for Apple Executive Relations, who has been calling me every so often for a couple of days, has let me know it’s all fixed. It looks like the gift card I tried to redeem, which did not work for me, and did not credit my account, was already redeemed in some way (sounds like classic gift card tampering), and my account was caught by that. Obviously it’s unacceptable that this can happen, and I’m still trying to get more information out of him, but at least things are now mostly working.
It’s great that it has been resolved, but I’m still baffled by a number of things:
1) Why would redeeming a bad gift card result in a complete shut-down of the account? 2) Why is it seemingly impossible to get any support now unless you drum up a ton of press? 3) Should companies be restricted from growing too large where they can’t support their customers?
In my personal and professional experience, banks are the only companies that seem to actually know how to handle these issues appropriately when it comes to fraud or access. Rather than move to outright banning the account, there are intermediate steps that can be taken. Personal example, my Facebook account was recently banned because a hacker accessed my account uploaded a bad ID when FB requested an ID verification. Despite the request coming from a country I have never visited and would likely be on any high-risk list, my 20 year old account was banned literally overnight without having any recourse. There’s no number or even any email to use. Maybe I can see if the Register will write it up… (I do have all the info from my Facebook account download to show how it was compromised, and any internal support should have been able to see the same… if they cared.)
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#15> Update 18 December 2025: We’re back! A lovely man from Singapore, working for Apple Executive Relations, who has been calling me every so often for a couple of days, has let me know it’s all fixed. It looks like the gift card I tried to redeem, which did not work for me, and did not credit my account, was already redeemed in some way (sounds like classic gift card tampering), and my account was caught by that. Obvi…
Banks frequently completely freeze accounts for no discernable reason and with zero communication, support, or recourse.
You're just lucky that it hasn't happened to you. That does not mean it doesn't happen to anyone.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#16This fiasco stirs up a lot of different topics for me, none of which seem like they are likely to be resolved anytime soon. First, with so much importance placed on an Apple/iCloud account in our current era it's not good that they can be shutdown so trivially. Someone can be shut out from using Messages, Apple Wallet, Digital Identification (depending on where they live) and all their subscriptions and media purchas…
I’m realizing maybe I should just use Amazon or iCloud AND Google Photos for backing up my images. My whole life is in Google Photos. I could lose it from something stupid and never even have a person to contact about that.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#17Genuine question: if your Apple account is locked, and you're unable to create a new one, is your iPhone still usable?
If you read the other posts about this, the author explains that the phone technically still works, but you can't access iMessage or anything. Probably basic text and calls only.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#18The real problem is that companies do not offer any accessible, powerful, and intelligent customer support. Even if they have real humans to talk to, they simply follow a script. Those agents do not have the ability to investigate a situation or the power to use their discretion to take meaningful action.
We should impose, by law, the following rules on all companies that offer accounts to their customers.
1. If they block/ban/close/suspend a customer account they must provide habeas corpus. Explain to the customer the policies that were violated that resulted in their account being terminated. Additionally they should be required to show the customer the evidence that led the company to make the decision.
2. They company must provide an accessible live human appeals process. The human they appeal to must have the discretionary power to investigate and make a common sense decision even if it contradicts policy. This process currently only exists for people who are capable of making a lot of noise in public. How many people lose their accounts and suffer harm because they are incapable of getting attention in public? It needs to be available to all customers with a simple phone call or email. It must also be required to make a decision very quickly, 24 or 48 hours at most.
3. In the rare case that the company still makes an unjust decision, there must be a quick and accessible legal remedy. Establish some kind of small claims court where it is cheap and easy to file without a lawyer, and where cases can be heard and decided on short notice.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#19If CloudFlare can do public post-mortems then so can Apple.
Notoriously secretive, siloed Apple, where even internally, teams are said to be entirely in the dark about each other’s work? I think Apple, culturally, can’t do a public post mortem no matter how much they might want to. I would love to be proven wrong on this, because I would very much like to understand what happened.
Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?
#20Genuine question: if your Apple account is locked, and you're unable to create a new one, is your iPhone still usable?
In a genuine and everyday real sense, no, your likely thousand dollar device is not usable. The App Store requires an account to download from. Internal services and apps often complain about not being available. You are mostly stuck with whatever built in, non-cloud services the device comes with, which isn't much. Weather and mail fetching come to mind. Maybe some of the simple recording / note taking like apps. A working Apple ID is essentially a requirement to actually use the device you purchase. And yes there will be comments from folks about "ways" you can perhaps sideload or get things running, but to a regular person that simply uses a phone like a standard appliance in their life - they're stuck.