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Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

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Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#301

Post by kyboren »

lvl155 wrote: post #154
bombcar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are apparently large amounts of NEW gift card scams going around; Target has recently changed how they work and I've heard other reports. Frankly, staying away from gift cards seems the best option unless it's blast radius can be limited (e.g., redeemed in person).

But that basically screws over loyal Apple customers who trade in an entire family’s worth of iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, Macbooks, etc over the years. Sometimes you just take a giftcard because you don’t want to buy a new thing. Fast forward a couple of years, you basically learn that you traded in your Macbook Pro for nothing. How’s that not a controversy? Perhaps they should give customers non-transferable stor…

Perhaps they should just give them cash. But that wouldn't guarantee future sales and they wouldn't make a few extra percent margin off of people who never redeem their cards.

We're a multi-trillion dollar company and your BATNA is terrible. Don't like how we roll? Go fuck yourself.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#302

Post by bookofjoe »

charcircuit wrote: post #216
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…

>Not every one has that kind of public reach to get a satisfactory resolution. You can contact an employee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation

>You can contact an employee

Off topic pretty much: In 2013 I was one of the 8,000 people in the U.S. selected by Google to be able to buy Google Glass ($1,500 [$2,000 in today's money]) in its first release to the public. One thing I will never get over is the customer service offered to us Glassholes: not a toll-free number, no automated voice mail tree: I'd call for any reason AT ANY TIME NIGHT OR DAY OR WEEKEND OR HOLIDAY and a Glass specialist would answer within a couple rings and spend as much time on the phone with me as I needed to resolve my issue.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#303

Post by dewey »

rconti wrote: post #206
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…

They covered this a lot on the Accidental Tech Podcast last night. I just don't get why these companies should be in the business of offering gift cards-- at least, not if they can't be redeemed safely. I'm sure people would run other kinds of scams with AppleIDs without the existence of gift cards, but gift card redemption scams have gotta be 99% of the reason people create fake accounts. The support burden would ev…

> I just don't get why these companies should be in the business of offering gift cards

I think gift card or not isn't really relevant, fraudulent activity can happen in a lot of ways like iCloud being paid by a stolen credit card, or TV shows being rented with hacked PayPal account.

The real issue is simply that there's no proper support avenue for serious issues that at this point affect your whole life, a family or a whole company. There's also no real avenue for a user to get the authorities to do anything to help with their case.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#304

Post by cyberax »

hamdingers wrote: post #143
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. #…

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

Small claims won't help you to reinstate the account. You _might_ get money for your phone back.

And a real court? You signed away that right. It's arbitration for you.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#305

Post by quesera »

lvl155 wrote: post #154
bombcar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are apparently large amounts of NEW gift card scams going around; Target has recently changed how they work and I've heard other reports. Frankly, staying away from gift cards seems the best option unless it's blast radius can be limited (e.g., redeemed in person).

But that basically screws over loyal Apple customers who trade in an entire family’s worth of iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, Macbooks, etc over the years. Sometimes you just take a giftcard because you don’t want to buy a new thing. Fast forward a couple of years, you basically learn that you traded in your Macbook Pro for nothing. How’s that not a controversy? Perhaps they should give customers non-transferable stor…

Gift cards sold or issued at an Apple store are the safest kind.

There is no opportunity for the kinds of large-scale fraud you see with cards purchased elsewhere. The only risks would be the same for any other bearer instrument, e.g. wallet theft.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#306

Post by cogogo »

autoexec wrote: post #297
TuringNYC wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article alone is grounds for me to never, ever use Apple gift cards -- just by virtue of all the personal photos, etc that I've entrusted to iCloud.

The real wisdom to take away from this is that you need to keep copies of everything you've ever entrusted to iCloud because iCloud cannot be trusted. This was one instance where a giftcard seems to have caused someone to lose access to their stuff, but there's nothing stopping some other random thing fully outside of your control from causing Apple to kick you out of the things you've given them to keep for you. Eve…

I agree with this but I am not sure the personal risk of loss is very high with Apple. It is real but is it even on the same order of magnitude of losing your family photos in a house fire 30yrs ago? I used to keep a disk in a safe deposit box with my pics but got lazy. Is that good practice or paranoia?

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#307

Post by asadotzler »

snowwrestler wrote: post #258
EvanAnderson wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dealing with fraudsters should be baked into the cost of doing business for these megacorps. A smaller business couldn't get away with this kind of "support". The largest companies should be held to the same standard. The only way this is going to change is if shareholders hold executives accountable. Consumer protection regulation with real "teeth" that impacts the bottom line will bring angry shareholders to the ta…

> Dealing with fraudsters should be baked into the cost of doing business for these megacorps. A smaller business couldn't get away with this kind of "support". The largest companies should be held to the same standard. It is already baked into the costs in business models of big companies. And they are pretty good at it, actually; we’re talking about one high-profile case, and it’s not the only one, but it is rare e…

IF it happens to a high enough profile person that we can all hear about it, it's certainly happening to far more not high profile people we never hear from. No one wants absolute certainty. We want less corporate fuckery.The scale of the challenge is not an issue for companies worth trillions of dollars except that they don't want to spend a meaningful part of those trillions to deal with the challenge.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#308

Post by yread »

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 pay Microsoft all of eur 11.20/month for basic office subscription and the 3 times I've clicked contact support I got called by helpful people who resolved my problem.

I guess that's one reason enterprises like them

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#309

Post by jdelman »

jmward01 wrote: post #91

A core concept here is that of ownership. People think they own their accounts and data. Stories like these, and unfortunately the law, make it clear that they don't own anything. I personally think it is false advertising of companies to even hint at ownership. Words like 'buy' shouldn't be allowed since it implies owning. They should only be allowed to say 'rent' or 'grant a limited license'.

When you sign up for an Apple account, you aren't "buying" anything. In fact there is a set of terms & conditions you agree to when signing up which most likely includes language stating that your account can be closed with the discretion of the platform owner. What we need isn't a shift from "buying" to "renting", but instead something akin to a Consumer Bill of Rights that states that you are entitled to appeal account closure if you are in good standing and can prove as much.

Re: Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem?

#310

Post by asadotzler »

benced wrote: post #241
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…

This legislation has high costs and while it seems fair to impose them on the Apples and Googles of the world, this gets weirder with smaller services that might have trouble complying. My podcast player, Overcast (overcast.fm), is one guy. Should he be subject to this? It seems like that business might not be able to exist if he was. You could do a revenue threshold or something but seems tricky.

The business size doesn't matter. Bake it into the business' books and charge what it takes to manage it. If you can't, your business isn't viable. If you can, it doesn't matter if you're 1 person, 100 people, or 1 million people.
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