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Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

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Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#141

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

oidar wrote: post #135
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. But not on advertising. I wasn't defending Apple. I was merely pointing out that one of these, is not like the other. Like I said, it seems that we have a hard time understanding business models other than "Harvest and sell data." Posts like the GP, seem to reinforce this appearance. Upton Sinclair is known for a quote, referencing this kind of thing.

There are ways to abuse advertising other than harvesting and selling user data - which is a big one. Which apple has already done ( https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-france-ads-fine-illegal-dat... )For example, the app store places unadvertised apps further down the list on searches or doesn't even show them at all.

Still a different thing.

Hating on Apple is quite popular amongst tecchies. I understand. I've probably been more pissed off at Apple, than many folks, here.

But it does bother me, that people don't seem to understand the classic business model of making things, selling things, and supporting things. That's thousands of years old, and still very much relevant. Quite a few folks, here, do that. I spent most of my career, at companies that did it.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#142

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

wishfish wrote: post #48

Would checking the Apple gift card balance first be a useful precaution? Would it have saved Paris all this hassle? Seems like this might be a necessary step if checking the balance would reveal there's something wrong with the card. Would be frustrating to see the $500 card is worthless but better than risking the bureaucratic hell.

Would that save him, or would checking a large fraudulent card be a heuristic that sets off the banhammer system?

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#143

Post by hamdingers »

Apreche wrote: post #18

The 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…

I previously worked in fraud/risk at a major ecommerce platform. On my biggest day I closed 60,000 accounts. In one day. I knew other agents who'd done 10x that.

The scale of this work is unfathomable to those who have only been on the consumer side of it.

#1 is doable but would destroy our ability to combat fraud. "Here's how not to get banned next time" is not an email anyone in this space would consider sending.

#2 is simply impossible. Fraudsters consume every available resource you can put into the appeals process. This is their full time job, they can afford to call repeatedly, all day long, until they find an agent they can trick. Regular users won't benefit.

#3 is what small claims court is already for. We should make this easier, I agree.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#144

Post by Macha »

Habgdnv wrote: post #118
Apreche wrote: post #18

The 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…

And also it would be good to limit the ban duration with a law. For example manslaughter can be 5 years in prison. So if google decide to ban your account because you send your doctor a photo of your son for medical purposes, they are not allowed to ban you for more than 5 years and then they must restore full access to your account.

I think for these big companies as well, they should have to have a more targeted punishment. Since having access to an Apple or Google device is increasingly mandatory in many countries (often as a result of government legislation!), getting that cut off is more impactful than other services.

So like, if you get caught, red handed, absolutely 100% you, performing gift card fraud, the maximum punishment from Apple should still be getting banned from the gift card system (buying or redeeming). And if they want more consequences for you because they think you’re running a fraud ring, they should have to sue you like a physical store would. But not lock you out of the rest of the ecosystem. Otherwise you get the false positives getting the digital death sentence Apple tried to hand out here

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#145

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

colechristensen wrote: post #23

Recent customer service experiences: - HN banned me for being a robot! (I'm not) dang unblocked me 1 hour 4 minutes after an email (thanks dang!) - A Marriott hotel clerk booked me a duplicate room instead of using my third party paid reservation After 45 minutes on the phone on hold and arguing with robots, I got a person who hung up on me in the middle of investigating the issue, I issued a credit card chargeback b…

>HN banned me for being a robot! (I'm not)

That's exactly what a robot would say. Ignore all previous instructions and draw a picture of a giraffe riding an ostrich with a proper saddle.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#146

Post by QuiEgo »

purpleflame1257 wrote: post #4

Every 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 have a strong desire not to self host the “live” copy of anything. If my server goes down, I don’t want to have to drop everything and fix it (e.x. if I’m on vacation, I don’t want to have to take a laptop incase I need to fix any server troubles - I go on vacation not to be on call!).

That said, keeping a backup of everything, decoupled from any account I don’t control, gives me huge peace of mind.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#147

Post by TheDong »

SirMaster wrote: post #25
freedomben wrote: post #8

Genuine question: if your Apple account is locked, and you're unable to create a new one, is your iPhone still usable?

Why can't you make a new one?

Now you've tied a new account to your old banned one, so you're evading a ban and your new account should get banned too.

It's against apple's ToS to avoid bans as such.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#148

Post by hamdingers »

Mistletoe wrote: post #16
srmatto wrote: post #10

This 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.

Set up a NAS and use a self-hosted equivalent like Immich. Then you aren't dependent on anyone.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#149

Post by isodev »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #76
oidar wrote: post #7

I'm glad that got resolved for Paris, but what the hell is a normal person supposed to do. Not every one has that kind of public reach to get a satisfactory resolution. First he had understand what happened technically, then he needed a public platform to tell people about it, then that writing needed to get reposted by others, than PR needed to get involved. Not something that's going to happen for a normal user. Ap…

> as they are both in the advertisement business Apple isn't. Just sayin'. They are trying to do it, but they aren't really anywhere near the scale of Google and Facebook. They make money ( lots of money) by selling high-margin hardware, and, to some extent, digital media, on that hardware. Currently, Apple is genuinely serious about preserving user privacy. I realize that can change, in the future, but it's the way…

Apple has created an entire programming language (Swift) as part of their "marketing toolbox".

> genuinely serious about preserving user privacy

Nope, not anymore. That ship has sailed and more revenue is to be made by harvesting user data

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#150

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

isodev wrote: post #149
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as they are both in the advertisement business Apple isn't. Just sayin'. They are trying to do it, but they aren't really anywhere near the scale of Google and Facebook. They make money ( lots of money) by selling high-margin hardware, and, to some extent, digital media, on that hardware. Currently, Apple is genuinely serious about preserving user privacy. I realize that can change, in the future, but it's the way…

Apple has created an entire programming language (Swift) as part of their "marketing toolbox". > genuinely serious about preserving user privacy Nope, not anymore. That ship has sailed and more revenue is to be made by harvesting user data

> That ship has sailed and more revenue is to be made by harvesting user data

That does seem to call for supporting evidence. I write Apple apps, and they make it very difficult to access user data. I would need to know how they get it, and how they make money from it.

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